An activist group projected a photograph of billionaire Elon Musk making a controversial gesture that resembled a Roman salute on a Tesla manufacturing facility close to Berlin this week, with a single phrase above the world’s richest man: “Heil.”
The picture, and an accompanying video of Musk’s remarks at one in every of President Donald Trump’s inauguration occasions this week, was crafted by a British political marketing campaign group referred to as Led By Donkeys. Critics have in contrast Musk’s gesture to the salute adopted by the Nazis, though he has dismissed such comparisons as “drained” Democratic assaults.
“Final evening we have been up on the Tesla Gigafactory in Berlin, the principle European manufacturing web site of Elon Musk’s automobile enterprise,” the group wrote in an e mail to supporters on Thursday. “It’s the corporate that makes him the world’s richest man, cash he’s more and more utilizing to spice up the far-right throughout Europe.”
“We have to cut back Musk’s energy and meaning not shopping for his automobiles,” the group added.
Led By Donkeys didn’t reply to a request for remark. HuffPost has reached out to Tesla for an announcement on the matter.
Musk doubled down on the controversy on Thursday, posting a collection of puns invoking Nazi leaders on his social media web site, X.
“Some folks will Goebbels something down!” the billionaire wrote, earlier than writing: “Guess you probably did nazi that coming.”
He ended the missive with a laughing emoji.
The Anti-Defamation League, a gaggle that works to struggle antisemitism, initially sought to defend Musk after he made the gesture, saying it wasn’t a Nazi salute and that the person deserved a “little bit of grace” or the “advantage of the doubt.” However the ADL took umbrage on the jokes, calling them extremely offensive.
“We’ve mentioned it tons of of occasions earlier than and we are going to say it once more: the Holocaust was a singularly evil occasion, and it’s inappropriate and offensive to make mild of it,” Jonathan Greenblatt, the group’s CEO, wrote on X.
