Sharon Zhang
Truthout / January 24, 2025
“Elon is a great friend of Israel,” Netanyahu said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has come to Elon Musk’s defense after the billionaire performed a salute at Donald Trump’s inauguration that is being widely celebrated by neo-Nazis as a Nazi salute.
In a post on social media, Netanyahu said that Musk is being “falsely smeared” and suggested that Musk’s support of Israel is proof that he isn’t antisemitic — even as numerous Jewish and anti-hate groups and observers have said that Musk’s now-infamous salute was clearly a Nazi salute.
“Elon is a great friend of Israel,” Netanyahu wrote. “He visited Israel after the October 7 massacre in which Hamas terrorists committed the worst atrocity against the Jewish people since the Holocaust. He has since repeatedly and forcefully supported Israel’s right to defend itself against genocidal terrorists and regimes who seek to annihilate the one and only Jewish state.”
“I thank him for this,” Netanyahu concluded.
Like Musk’s salute, Netanyahu’s statement immediately drew backlash, with critics saying that the Israeli leader’s embrace of Musk demonstrates that his top priority is not fighting antisemitism, but continuing Israel’s colonization of Palestine.
“Elon Musk saluted a Sieg Heil — evoking fear for millions and broadcasting hate and violence, not only for Jews, but for many others,” said Jewish Voice for Peace in reaction to Netanyahu’s post.
“But for the Israeli government, all that matters is that Musk supports its Jewish supremacist project of apartheid and ongoing genocide against Palestinians,” the group went on. “The Israeli alliance with fascists and Nazis across the globe is the inevitable direction of a violent apartheid state that manipulates the history of Jewish people in order to carry out ethnic cleansing.”
Indeed, many experts have said that Musk’s salute — which he performed twice in a row — was unambiguously a Nazi gesture. Neo-Nazis expressed excitement about the salute, celebrating it as a major win within neo-Nazi and white supremacist networks.
Meanwhile, the fiercely pro-Israel Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which brands itself as an antisemitism watchdog, has defended Musk, saying the salute was merely an “awkward gesture.”
The ADL has defended Musk before, when he has levied attacks against the movement for Palestinian rights. In the early months of the Gaza genocide, ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt praised Musk when he decided to censor pro-Palestinian terms and the word “decolonization” on X. “I appreciate this leadership in fighting hate,” Greenblatt said.
Greenblatt’s statement came just days after Musk had endorsed virulently antisemitic conspiracy theories, including the long-debunked, white supremacist “great replacement” theory.
For years, progressives have denounced Musk for espousing antisemitic and hateful views. Recently, he endorsed the far right, neo-Nazi German political party Alternative for Germany, whose party leaders have minimized or denied the Holocaust, among other antisemitic acts.
Indeed, amid the backlash to his salute, Musk made yet more antisemitic statements on Thursday, this time posting crass jokes making light of the Holocaust.
“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,” Musk wrote in a post on X, adding a laughing emoji.
This time, Greenblatt condemned Musk, saying, “We’ve said it hundreds of times before and we will say it again: the Holocaust was a singularly evil event, and it is inappropriate and offensive to make light of it. @elonmusk, the Holocaust is not a joke.”
Sharon Zhang is a news writer at Truthout covering politics, climate and labour
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Musk addresses German Far-Right party days after being accused of ‘Nazi salute’
Eloise Goldsmith
Common Dreams / January 26, 2025
Musk has enthusiastically backed AfD, an anti-immigrant party accused of minimizing Nazi crimes and using Nazi slogans.
Billionaire Elon Musk made virtual appearance at a Saturday campaign event for the far-right Alternative for Germany party — known by the initials AfD — ahead of a snap federal election in Germany next month. The campaign appearance comes less than a week after Musk was accused of performing a Nazi salute twice on stage at a post-inauguration celebration for U.S. President Donald Trump.
“A nazi speaking at a nazi rally. It’s really not deeper than that,” wrote the independent journalist Marisa Kabas on Saturday.
Musk has endorsed the AfD, known for its strong anti-immigrant stance, and earlier this month hosted AfD co-leader Alice Weidel — who was also at Saturday’s campaign event — for an interview on his platform X. Members of the AfD have been accused of downplaying the crimes of Nazi Germany and using Nazi slogans.
Musk told onlookers at the event, which took place in Halle, that he thinks AfD is the best hope for Germany and said that it’s good to be proud of German culture, according to Reuters and The Guardian.
“It’s good to be proud of German culture, German values, and not to lose that in some sort of multiculturalism that dilutes everything,” Musk said, according to Reuters, addressing the crowd via a live video.
“Children should not be guilty of the sins of their parents, let alone their great grandparents,” Musk also said, which, per Reuters, apparently referred to Germany’s Nazi past.
Musk’s “Nazi-like salutes” earlier this week drew sharp rebuke from some, but not all. The Anti-Defamation League, an organization whose mission is to combat antisemitism, called the move “an awkward gesture” and “not a Nazi salute.”
For his part, Musk wrote on X that the reaction was an example of Democratic “dirty tricks.” He also said that “the ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is soo tired.”
Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah, reacting to the news of Musk’s appearance at the rally, wrote that “all the people who were shrugging and equivocating over Elon and whether he was aligning with Nazi, far-right forces should be launched into the sun. May they never be taken seriously again.”
Eloise Goldsmith is a staff writer for Common Dreams
