Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is responding to critics who claim Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk gave a "Nazi salute" — not once, but twice — during an inauguration celebration for President Donald Trump.
"[Elon Musk] is being falsely smeared," Netanyahu wrote on Musk's social media platform X. "Elon is a great friend of Israel. He visited Israel after the Oct. 7 massacre in which Hamas terrorists committed the worst atrocity against the Jewish people since the Holocaust."
FROM THE ARCHIVES | Studies: Social media giants fuel antisemitism, extremism, hate speech
"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," Netanyahu added. "I thank him for this."
The Israeli prime minister's statement was in response to Musk's claim that "radical leftists" took time out of their "busy day praising Hamas to call me a Nazi."
The firestorm of criticism against Musk came after he gave a stiff-armed, flat-handed gesture to a large crowd at a rally for President Trump on Monday, with some linking it to European fascists like Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.
Scripps News spoke to Adam Zimmerman, a grandson of Holocaust survivors, and he called Musk's gesture "appalling."
"When I saw him do those salutes, to me it was immediate. I know what a Nazi salute looks like," Zimmerman said. "That salute has been one of the driving forces in my family's history. To me, there is no question he knew exactly what he was doing. It was incredibly painful in the moment and it remains so now."
FROM THE ARCHIVES | Musk meeting with Israeli leaders amid concerns over antisemitism on X
It's also not the first time Musk has faced backlash over actions that some people deemed antisemitic.
In 2023, after Musk took control of X — formerly Twitter — the liberal advocacy group Media Matters published a report accusing Musk of endorsing antisemitic conspiracy theories on the platform.
It came at a time when several major companies also pulled advertisements from Musk's site amid claims that their ads had appeared next to content that touted Adolf Hitler and Nazis.
X then sued Media Matter, arguing that it fabricated the report in order to "drive advertisers from the platform and destroy X Corp." to spite Musk.
"Obviously I am against antisemitism," Musk said at the time. "I am against anything that promotes hate and conflict, and I am in favor of that in which that helps society and takes us to a better future."
