The CEO of the Anti-Defamation League blasted Elon Musk on Thursday for a series of Holocaust-related jokes he posted on X, the social media platform he owns, just days after the nonprofit defended an “awkward gesture” he made that others have said closely resembles a Nazi salute.
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk inside Capitol One Arena in Washington, DC, on Jan. 20, 2025.
AFP via Getty Images
Key Takeaways
- Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the ADL, responded to a series of puns Musk posted evoking the names of famous Nazi party members Rudolf Hess, Joseph Goebbels, Hermann Göring and Heinrich Himmler, tweeting at the billionaire, “the Holocaust is not a joke “
- “The Holocaust was a singularly evil event, and it is inappropriate and offensive to make light of it,” Greenblatt said.
- The official ADL account piled on to Greenblatt’s message, posting that such jokes “trivialize the Holocaust” and “only serve to minimize the evil and inhumanity of Nazi crimes, denigrate the suffering of both victims and survivors and insult the memory of the six million Jews murdered in the Shoah.”
- The rebuttals to Musk, who has been active on Twitter all week defending himself against those who’ve accused him of performing a “Sieg Heil” salute while on stage at an inauguration event for President Donald Trump on Monday, comes in contrast with the organization defending him following the incident.
- After Musk touched the left side of his chest with his right hand and extended his arm upward, repeating the motion to the crowd behind him, the ADL defended Musk, saying in an X post he made an “awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute,” and urging “all sides” to “give one another a bit of grace.”
- Neither Greenblatt nor the ADL commented further on whether they were rethinking their initial statement.
Crucial Quote
“Bet you did nazi that coming 😂,” Musk posted at the end of his series of jokes Thursday.
Surprising Fact
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday defended Musk, calling him a “great friend of Israel.” Netanyahu said he is being “falsely smeared” in the wake of the incident, and praised Musk as someone who has “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.”
Key Background
Musk was on stage at Capitol One Arena in Washington when he made the hand gesture, which many have said is reminiscent of a “Sieg Heil” salute. The salute was used as a greeting in Nazi Germany and its use is illegal in both Germany and Austria. It can also be prosecuted as hate speech in some other European countries.
The move sparked a social media firestorm of those condemning him for using the gesture and others accusing his attackers of overblowing a gesture made in excitement. Several foreign officials and Democratic members of Congress, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., have accused Musk of knowingly performing a Nazi salute, while others, like journalist Batya Ungar-Sargon said the move appeared to be “a man with Aspergers exuberantly throwing his heart to the crowd,” accusing critics of “inventing outrage.”
Tangent
This isn’t the first time Musk has been accused of antisemitism. In November of 2023, he was called out for publicly endorsing an antisemitic conspiracy theory popular among white supremacists: that Jewish communities push “hatred against Whites.” Musk replied that an X user “said the actual truth” after the user claimed “Jewish communities have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.”
The post also included anti-immigrant sentiments. The Biden White House condemned his endorsement as “promotion of antisemitic and racist hate,” though Musk later denied being antisemitic and said his comments referred not to all Jewish people but to groups like the ADL and other unspecified “Jewish communities.” The post caused several big brands, including Disney and IBM, to stop advertising on the platform.
Weeks later, Musk visited Israel, where he talked with top leaders, including Netanyahu, and toured a kibbutz attacked by Hamas militants. In January of 2024, Musk visited the site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp and admitted to having been “naive” about the extent of antisemitism. He said he had seen “almost no antisemitism” in his own life and said he was “Jewish by association. I’m aspirationally Jewish.”
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