By World News Research

The Controversy Surrounding Elon Musk’s Nazi Salute

We earlier published an article referring to Elon Musk talking positively about Germany's far-right party however the controversy that erupted a few days ago seems more severe. When Musk, who has emerged as one of Donald Trump’s top allies, has faced renewed allegations of antisemitism since he made an evocative gesture while speaking after the new president’s inauguration that some said bore an uncanny resemblance to a Nazi salute.

Elon Musk’s biographer called him a “sociopath” after an attendee of the MAGA billionaire’s visit to the Auschwitz death camp last year suggested that it was merely a “photo-op.”

Also, Elon Musk’s daughter pushed back against what she called The X owner’s visit to Auschwitz in January 2024 which has been used as a point in defense of the billionaire.

Musk’s daughter (who purposely changed her name) said that, for as long as she could remember, Musk hasn’t been a supportive father. She said he was rarely present in her life, leaving her and her siblings to be cared for by their mother or by nannies even though Musk had joint custody. 

“He was cold,” she said. “He’s very quick to anger. He is uncaring and narcissistic.” 

Elon Musk’s Nazi Salute came at a time when the L.A. Holocaust Museum has unveiled a powerful new exhibit: an authentic freight car used to transport Jews to Nazi concentration camps. This haunting artifact serves as a stark reminder of the atrocities of the Holocaust, aiming to educate visitors about the devastating realities of history. The museum hopes the exhibit will inspire reflection, compassion, and a commitment to combat hatred and prejudice in all forms.

A Milwaukee reporter was reportedly let go by her station after condemning Elon Musk's arm gesture during Donald Trump's inauguration. Some have compared the action to a Nazi salute.

While Musk attacked the co-founders of Wikipedia after the “Nazi salute or fascist salute” incident was added to his page.

“Since legacy media propaganda is considered a 'valid' source by Wikipedia, it naturally simply becomes an extension of legacy media propaganda!” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “Defund Wikipedia until [the] balance is restored!”

Thus it has been a rather chaotic 48 hours to be Elon Musk, after the X owner made an appearance at Donald Trump's inauguration and an unfortunate salute he did for the crowd was quickly likened to a Nazi salute.

Reports claim that CBS 58 staff were notified in an email from news director Jessie Garcia that Sam Kuffel "is no longer employed" at the station. The email, obtained by the Journal Sentinel, continued: "A search for a replacement is underway."

The day before, Kuffel shared a photo of Musk at Trump's inauguration with the caption: "Dude Nazi saluted twice. TWICE. During the inauguration. You f*** with this and this man, I don't f*** with you. Full stop."

Since the incident, his ex-girlfriend, Grimes, has said she's "happy to denounce Nazi-ism - and the far alt-right", and the president of the Jewish community in Munich branded the salute “highly disconcerting”.

Gidon Lev, the 89-year-old Holocaust survivor who was the guest of honor at Musk’s much-publicized visit to the death camp, shared a scathing perspective on the event.

Elon Musk visits Auschwitz-Birkenau with European Jewish Association (EJA) Chairman Rabbi Menachem Margolin, Ben Shapiro, and Holocaust survivor Gidon Lev in Oswiecim, Poland. / Yoav Dudkevitch/European Jewish Association via Reuters

“I chatted with Elon Musk. I spent hours with him and walked with him through Auschwitz. I stood with him, looking at the nauseating heaps of hair, luggage, and shoes flooded with violet light meant to preserve it,” Julie Gray wrote on Facebook.

“Is Musk an antisemite?” she continued. “People, actually, it’s worse—he doesn’t care whatsoever... He was unmoved by the experience.”

Her criticism was unsparing.

“Elon did not care. He was about his press junket and his bodyguards. I was ten feet from him as he posed for the cameras of his entourage,” she wrote. “He was utterly detached. He cared about how he looked. When he placed a wreath at Auschwitz and Gidon was overlooked, he walked away with the cameras whirring. This is Elon Musk. A sociopath, if ever there was one. To deduce, from this visit, that he is a friend of the Jews is desperately naive.”

Seth Abramson, an award-winning writer who identifies himself as a biographer of Musk, took to X to share Gray’s story and agree with her assessment.

Musk is preparing for the launch of his Department of Government Efficiency, the newly created agency that Trump has named him to lead.

Similar bans were also noticed by GameSpot on subreddits for the Steam Deck, Monster Hunter, and World of Warcraft.

Speaking with Polygon, r/pcgaming mod Shock4ndAwe pointed to the slow degradation of X since Musk purchased the site as well as Musk’s behavior as major factors in their team’s decision to blacklist links to X.

“We’ve all seen the hate and the toxicity rise,” Shock4ndAwe said, speaking on behalf of the subreddit’s moderation team. “The constant attacks and vilification of people who aren’t straight, white, and male. The usernames and profile statuses denigrate and belittle folks who simply want to exist. Good moderation practices are being done away with. New rules require a user to log in to view content which creates a bad experience for users that either don’t have an X account or aren’t logged into one. We’d be lying if we didn’t also include Elon’s actions. This is the billionaire owner who creates sock puppet accounts to defend himself in public. He suspends journalists who criticize him. He made a Nazi salute at a presidential inauguration.”

Other gaming subreddits in the top 500 for Fortnite, The Legend of Zelda, Apex Legends, and Super Smash Bros. are currently having open discussions about banning X links as well. Opinions on blacklisting vary depending on the community, ranging from broad support to the asinine “keep politics out of it” refrain that’s all too common in both gaming and other online communities. And while Reddit itself has promised not to interfere with subreddits that choose to ban X links, Shock4ndAwe believes the movement is important to improving Reddit as a whole.

“We want to be very clear in saying that Reddit isn’t a perfect platform either,” the r/pcgaming mod said. “Reddit allows communities to exist on their platform that spread hate, sexism, racism, transphobia, and other forms of bigotry. This affects our community so much that we’ve had to take the extraordinary step of banning people from specific subreddits preemptively. So it’s even more important that when other subreddits decide that X needs to be banned that we join them. Because Reddit the company doesn’t care.”

The response from the r/nintendo community has been “overwhelmingly positive,” razorbeamz explained, apart from a few outside agitators lodging complaints despite never posting on the subreddit. We heard the same from Shock4ndAwe, who said the r/pcgaming community is fine with the decision, while non-members have taken to participating in brigades — organized attempts from outside entities to disrupt normal discussion — on the forum and threatening the moderation team and their families. One of the offending messages provided to Polygon calls the mods “raging f4gys,” incorrectly states there are only two genders, and signs off with “Epstein yrslf.”

“This was reported to the Reddit admins who informed us that the threatening posts do not violate site rules and no action was taken on the offending account,” Shock4ndAwe said. Polygon asked Reddit for comment on the situation but had yet to hear back at the time of publishing this story.

What exactly Musk meant by striking his chest and extending his arm straight out continues to be a baffling debate among unserious people in mainstream media and conservatives who refuse to acknowledge the openly fascist goals of President Trump’s inner circle for what they are. A group of elected Jewish officials from New York, however, was very blunt in a Jan. 22 statement on the matter, saying:

On January 20th, we saw Elon Musk give what appeared to be two Nazi salutes — otherwise known as a “Sieg Heil” or a “Roman salute” — at an official presidential event, from a podium that bore the presidential seal. As Jewish elected officials committed to combating antisemitism in New York, we unequivocally condemn this action and the lack of apology. Given that Elon Musk has repeatedly pushed the antisemitic “Great Replacement” theory and endorsed the Nazi-supporting AfD party in Germany, it is not hard to imagine that he knew exactly what he was doing.

Among many other sweeping executive actions taken on day one, President Trump pardoned hundreds of January 6th rioters, including one who notoriously wore a “Camp Auschwitz” shirt to the Capitol insurrection. Thousands of people will be materially harmed by the administration’s sweeping actions on day one, and we stand in solidarity with those New Yorkers.

It should not be hard to call any of this out. Any organization or leader that purports to combat hate against Jews and other minority groups must do so loudly and clearly. There is no room for ambiguity when it comes to Nazi symbology. The time is now to protect ourselves and our neighbors, not to normalize hate.

With all that in mind, we had one more question for our Reddit mods: What needs to happen for X links to be reinstated in their communities? Both were less than hopeful of that ever being a possibility but mentioned Musk divesting from the platform as being a good start.

“Realistically?” Shock4ndAwe said. “I don’t think there’s anything X can do that will make us comfortable linking to them in the future."

Reddit communities dedicated to PC gaming, Nintendo, and Destiny have decided to blacklist links to X (formerly Twitter) due to owner Elon Musk’s recent Nazi-like saluting at an inauguration rally for President Donald Trump as part of a growing movement by users of the social media site to distance themselves from the controversial billionaire. All have millions of members and rank within the site’s top 500 pages.

 

 

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