Elon Musk, billionaire adviser to President Donald Trump, leaned into the accusations that his Monday salute was a “Sieg heil” gesture with a series of trollish Nazi puns on X.
“Don’t say Hess to Nazi accusations!” Musk wrote Thursday, referring to German Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler’s deputy, Rudolf Hess.
“Some people will Goebbels anything down!” he joked, referencing Joseph Goebbels, the deeply antisemitic Nazi propaganda minister who organized the 1938 Kristallnacht assault on Jewish families.
Other lines invoked Hermann Göring, the Nazi military leader who wanted to rid Germany of its Jewish population, and Heinrich Himmler, the SS chief who was instrumental in planning the Holocaust.
“Bet you did nazi that coming,” Musk added at the end, with a laughter emoji.
The Tesla CEO has made light of the outrage over his salute, which came at Trump’s inauguration rally before the president stopped by Washington’s Capital One Arena.
Musk agreed with another X poster who shared a video of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), claiming the two men were making the same gesture, although Walz used an open palm and a slack arm, unlike Musk.
Musk followed his Nazi puns with a post reading, “When I see the troll emoji, it’s like looking in the mirror.”
His supporters have argued alternately that Musk’s autism affects how he behaves in public, and that the salute was nothing much out of the ordinary.
Musk made the gesture twice while he thanked Trump’s supporters in the arena, saying at the time, “My heart goes out to you.”
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The Anti-Defamation League covered for Musk on Monday, saying in a statement that he should be given “a bit of grace” or “perhaps even the benefit of the doubt,” although critics rejected the group’s response. Conservative Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also rose to Musk’s defense on Thursday.
But Musk has made no secret of his affinity for far-right talking points since purchasing Twitter, which he renamed X, in 2022.
In the past, he has used his own account to promote the racist “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory, which posits that white people are being “replaced” by nonwhite people in Western nations. Musk also allowed neo-Nazi accounts to proliferate on X, sparking a rise in offensive content there.