On the heels of the backlash to his gestures at a Donald Trump inauguration event and his attempts to make Nazi-related jokes on X, Elon Musk told supporters of Germany’s far-right party on Saturday that there is “too much of a focus on past guilt.”
Speaking virtually at an Alternative for Germany (AfD) campaign event in eastern Germany, the Tesla CEO said people should “take pride” in German culture and values “and not to lose that in some sort of multiculturalism that dilutes everything.”
“ I think there’s, frankly, too much of a focus on past guilt, and we need to move beyond that. Children should not be guilty of the sins of their parents … let alone their great-grandparents, maybe even,” Musk said, in an apparent reference to Germany’s Nazi past.
Musk has voiced his support for the far-right, anti-immigrant political party in recent months as he seeks to assert his influence on Germany’s upcoming elections. In the past week, he has faced a deluge of criticism in the U.S. and across Europe for a straight-arm gesture resembling a Nazi salute that he made, twice, while speaking at a Trump inauguration event on Monday.
Musk, who has a history of aligning himself with far-right figures and promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories — and then occasionally apologizing for his public remarks — suggested that the backlash to his gesture was part of a Democratic-led hoax. “The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is sooo tired,” he wrote in a post on X. He later attempted to make a series of Nazi jokes on X, writing puns like “Bet you did nazi that coming,” accompanied by a crying-laughing emoji. In his speech Saturday, Musk said he was “very excited” for the AfD. “I think you are really the best hope for Germany,” he told the crowd to cheers.
Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.
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