Elon Musk crosses the border to Nazi

On Thursday I posted on Bluesky that it’s been a quiet week for the Jews, and that turned out to be a mistake.

The last two weeks of Jewish high holidays went off mostly without a hitch—save for a few bomb threats—which was an incredible relief, especially given Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s meeting with Elon Musk in the midst of these most holy days. (I wrote about that disgrace for MSNBC.)

I’m not saying that my tempting of fate prompted Elon Musk to bare his whole antisemitic chest once more on Friday, but it couldn’t help but feel that way. 

It was another banner week for Musk: He dressed up as a cowboy with his hat on backwards and went to the US southern border to pretend he understood immigration policy. After taking aim at people attempting to migrate to our country, he took to Twitter to talk about the banal things he learned from his border jaunt, and then took a hard right turn into German politics. Even for him, it was shocking.

Musk shared a post from another account Friday morning criticizing German NGO’s (non-governmental organization) for providing ships to rescue African migrants unsafely crossing the Mediterranean to Italy. “These NGOs are subsidized by the German government. Let's hope AfD wins the elections to stop this European suicide,” the account wrote. Musk then added his own commentary, asking: “Is the German public aware of this?” 

The German Foreign Office responded to Musk’s query by tweeting, “Yes. And it’s called saving lives.” 

Some seven hours later, Musk shot back: “So you’re actually proud of it. Interesting. Frankly, I doubt that a majority of the German public supports this. Have you run a poll? Surely it is a violation of the sovereignty of Italy for Germany to transport vast numbers of illegal immigrants to Italian soil? Has invasion vibes …”

Let’s just be crystal clear: The richest man in the world who has been vocal about his antisemitism and hatred of immigrants is asking the German government if they’re proud organizations from their country are helping save lives, and Musk is A) confused as to why they’re proud of that, B) asking if they’ve run a poll to gauge whether Germans are into saving lives, and C) accusing Germany of invading Italy.

One might forgive Musk for thinking he has even the slightest bit of authority in geopolitical matters: After all, in the last two weeks he’s met with Netanyahu, as well as the president of Hungary to discuss family values and the “demographic” decline. (That means white people.) And his company Starlink had a major impact in Russia’s war on Ukraine. But at the end of the day, he’s just an idiot who owns a website that he’s run into the ground. 

Let’s also be clear that when Musk asks about a “poll”, he means a Twitter poll. Yes, the same mechanism he employed a few weeks back to see if people supported him banning the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish organization that has been critical of his approach to content moderation. He believes his platform supersedes elections and legitimate government decisions, and I think in his twisted mind, truly sees a future where the results of a Twitter poll become law.

All that aside, this series of exchanges is remarkably alarming. The original post he re-shared references the AfD, Alternative for Germany. It’s a far-right German political party that is rabidly anti-immigration, and whose youth recruitment arm has been classified as an “extremist group”. Sound familiar?

POLITICO Europe recently described the dangers of the AfD:

I haven’t been shy about saying that Elon Musk is an antisemite. But mere weeks later, I think it’s time to upgrade his classification: Nazi. If there’s anything more blatant and frightening than publicly aligning with Germans who hate, “foreigners, Jews, the LGTBQ+ community or just about anyone who might be deemed different.” then I can’t think of it.

Every single one of my ancestral alarm bells have been set off, just as they were when then-candidate Trump shared a meme in 2016 from a far right account showing Hillary Clinton with a Star of David and stacks of cash. At the time, I was told I was overreacting, and even still, fascists and their supporters will say this fear is manufactured. But the proof is right there. It’s Nazi saluting us in the face. If we choose to ignore it, we do so at our own peril.

Quick note: I know I didn’t send out anything this week, and I promise there’s a very good reason: I’ve been knee-deep in an exclusive investigative story that has been taking up all my time and brain space. Turns out that when you’re a one-woman band, taking on a story of this scope leaves few opportunities to switch gears. That story will be dropping this coming week, and you’ll see why it was so consuming (and so important to me.) I also hope you’ll consider upgrading to a paid subscription if you haven’t already so that I can continue to take on ambitious projects like this. It’s truly what I love to do.