Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has defended Elon Musk after media outlets described a gesture that the Tesla CEO made at President Donald Trump’s inauguration rally on Monday as a Nazi salute.
Netanyahu took to X on Thursday to post that Musk is ‘being falsely smeared.’
‘Elon is a great friend of Israel,’ the prime minister said. ‘He visited Israel after the October 7 massacre in which Hamas terrorists committed the worst atrocity against the Jewish people since the Holocaust. 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 went on to thank Musk for his support.
Musk made the gesture in question while speaking to a crowd of MAGA faithful at the Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C.
‘This is what victory feels like! And this was no ordinary victory, this was a fork in the road for human civilization… I just want to say thank you for making it happen, thank you. From my heart to yours,’ an ebullient Musk said as he placed his hand over his own heart and reached out to the crowd.
PBS News Hour fired out a post on X that said the Tesla CEO ‘gave what appeared to be a fascist salute,’ while the Jerusalem post wrote, ‘US billionaire Elon Musk appeared to make a Heil Hitler salute at the Washington DC Trump parade on Monday, following Trump’s inauguration.’
CNN host Erin Burnett played the clip of the gesture and called it an ‘odd salute.’
Musk addressed the controversy Wednesday on X, which he owns, writing, ‘The radical leftists are really upset that they had to take time out of their busy day praising Hamas to call me a Nazi.’
On Thursday, Musk poked fun at the reports in another post on X.
‘Don’t say Hess to Nazi accusations! Some people will Goebbels anything down! Stop Gőring your enemies! His pronouns would’ve been He/Himmler! Bet you did nazi that coming,’ Musk wrote, adding a crying laughing emoji.
The Anti-Defamation League also defended Musk in a statement saying that the tech billionaire had made an ‘awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute.’
‘In this moment, all sides should give each one another a bit of grace, perhaps even the benefit of the doubt and take a breath,’ the statement said.
Fox News Digital’s David Spector contributed to this report.