Elon Musk has pushed back against claims that he supports Nazi ideology, saying the wave of online criticism he’s facing has been “pretty stressful.”
During a three-hour episode of The Joe Rogan Experience on Friday, Musk and Rogan addressed a recent controversy surrounding a gesture Musk made at President Donald Trump’s inauguration celebration in January. The gesture sparked widespread debate, with many questioning whether it resembled a fascist salute.
Michel Friedman, former vice president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, strongly criticized Musk’s action, telling a German publication that it was a disgrace and, in his view, a clear “Heil Hitler” salute, according to The Guardian. US Rep. Jerry Nadler also condemned the gesture in a post on X, while several Jewish organizations voiced concerns. The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights group, urged Musk to clarify his intentions.
However, the Anti-Defamation League took a different stance, stating in a post on X that the moment appeared to be “an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute.”
Since then, social media—including Musk’s own platform, X—has been flooded with accusations that the billionaire is enabling or condoning Nazism.
Responding to the backlash, Musk posted a message on X making puns out of prominent Nazi names: “Don’t say Hess to Nazi accusations! Some people will Goebbels anything down! Stop Gőring your enemies! His pronouns would’ve been He/Himmler! Bet you did nazi that coming,” ending the post with a crying-laughing emoji.
Speaking to Rogan, Musk dismissed the allegations as “ridiculous” and denied making a Nazi salute, joking, “Now I can never point at things diagonally.”
“Hopefully people realize I’m not a Nazi. Just to be clear, I’m not a Nazi,” Musk said, laughing.
He then argued that being labeled a Nazi requires committing genocide or launching wars.
“What’s relevant about Nazis is like, are you invading Poland? And if you’re not invading Poland, maybe you’re not” a Nazi, he said. “You have to be committing genocide and starting wars.”
Musk further stated, “What is actually bad about Nazis—it wasn’t their fashion or their mannerisms, it was the war and genocide.”
At another point, Rogan asked Musk how he personally handles the level of hate and attacks directed at him.
“It’s pretty stressful,” Musk admitted, shifting to a more serious tone. “They actually want to kill me. They say so online. There’s like Reddit forums where they don’t just want to kill me, they want to desecrate my corpse.”
Beyond the controversy over his gesture, Musk has also drawn scrutiny for his support of Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. The nationalist, anti-immigration party has been widely criticized for repurposing Nazi slogans, downplaying Germany’s past crimes, and claiming that the Nazi era was just a “speck of bird poop” in the country’s long history.
https://x.com/RepJerryNadler/status/1881474208771055639
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/21/the-gesture-speaks-for-itself-germans-divided-over-musks-apparent-nazi-salute
Last modified: March 1, 2025
