Outrage over Musk's 'Hitler didn't murder millions' repost
Category: News & Politics
Via: tacos • yesterday • 88 commentsBy: Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy (USA TODAY)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Swapna Venugopal RamaswamyUSA TODAYHear this story
WASHINGTON − Billionaire Elon Musk, who has been cutting thousands of federal workers as the head of Department of Government Efficiency, on Thursday reposted a message on X saying "Hitler didn't murder millions of people. Public sector employees did."
The post read: "Stalin, Mao, and Hitler didn't murder millions of people. Their public sector employees did."
Musk's repost, which now appears to be deleted, drew furious reactions from a labor union and the Anti-Defamation League.
Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, fired back:
"America's public service workers — our nurses, teachers, firefighters, librarians — chose making our communities safe, healthy and strong over getting rich. They are not, as the world's richest man implies, genocidal murderers."
"Elon Musk and the billionaires in this administration have no idea what real people go through every day. That's why he's so willing to take a chainsaw to people's jobs, Medicaid, Social Security and Medicare," Saunders said.
The Anti-Defamation League, a nonprofit that seeks to combat antisemitism, said the post was "deeply disturbing."
"It is deeply disturbing and irresponsible for someone with a large public platform to elevate the kind of rhetoric that serves to undermine the seriousness of these issues," the group said on social media. Musk has more than 219 million followers on X.
Musk's repost compared federal workers to three of the modern era's greatest killers.
Nazi leader Adolph Hilter led the murders of six million European Jews in the Holocaust and caused the deaths of millions more civilians in World War II. Dictator Josef Stalin killed between six and nine million Soviet citizens through executions, starvation and imprisonment. And Chinese Communist Party leader Mao Zedong's policies are estimated to have killed between 30 million and 45 million people through starvation and disease.
Musk's repost comes at a time when his attack on the federal government has spurred "Tesla Takedown" protests, with Tesla owners being harassed and multiple dealerships being vandalized across the nation.
Back in January, Musk sparked controversy with a gesture that drew comparisons to the Nazi salute while speaking at an inaugural event for President Donald Trump.
Back then, the ADL defended Musk's gesture as "awkward," while it was being panned by critics.
"It seems that @elonmusk made an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute, but again, we appreciate that people are on edge," read ADL's post.
Since the "Tesla Takedown" protests began, Tesla stock has plummeted, plunging by close to 50% since its peak in December.
Trump hosted an event at the White House on Wednesday to showcase his support for Tesla.
Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy is a White House Correspondent for USA TODAY. You can follow her on X @SwapnaVenugopal
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Just keep looking the other way, I guess.
Our standards for public behavior have disappeared.
It's so depressing. This horrible man has tremendous power. IN AMERICA!
Technically he is correct, the mob boss who orders the killing doesn't do the actual killing, his public sector workers do.
How did that lousy Nazi excuse work out for Hitler's underlings?
I don't see how you could have missed the point so badly.
What Musk said, and therefore, what George said was absolutely correct and, because they are, it is why those 'public sector employees' are in the photo you provided here. You are here implying the literal opposite of what Musk's words mean.
The people in the photo used "I was just following orders" as a defense for what they did. Musk's words mean that this isn't going to fly. Hitler may have ordered you to do it, but you're the one who actually carried it out, as did the people under you, and the people under them, and under them and so on.
Without knowing anything else other than what the X repost message says, it is saying the people who carry out the wishes of such a man are just as guilty as that man. There's nothing in the message that absolves Hitler of anything. That, apparently, is simply how you want it to read.
For goodness sakes, you, JR and many others have expressed the same exact sentiment when you blame everyone who voted for Trump as being complicit in what Trump does or is going to do. How can you not see that?
LEt's look at that statement:
And you said:
So what homicidal maniac's orders were the public sector workers following?
More like blaming those who currently defend what Trump is currently doing.
Why that statement? It wasn't what I was referring to. Or, rather, only the portion concerning the x repost.
Hitler's, obviously. Point???
You fail to recognize musks position as executioner of Trump's desire. Trump's desire is to fire all of the liberals or people who have worked supposedly against him from the government, and masses more, to thereby make everyone nervous about the safety of their job, no matter the quality of their reviews.
In such a position, making remarks about public sector employees following Hitler's lead is bad form to say the least, as it could be seen as a justification of his position as Trump's hit man.
Why would I even need to recognize this in the first place? Do you recall to what I was responding to in 3.1.1 ?
Perhaps I did not fail to recognize something but, rather, you didn't take into account the context in which 3.1.1 was given?
Believe it or not, though, I did consider your quote above and I could not find a way to make Musks repost message fit what you describe, but I will explain when I reply to your post in 3.2.21 in order to avoid carrying out the same conversation in two different threads.
And Elon Musk didn’t make billions of dollars, his private sector employees did.
No they didn't!!! or they would be billionaires.
Put him on a desert Island and see how fast he makes his billions. Nobody is self made.
FLASHBACK: "You didn't build that". SMH
He'll starve
Can you point out where i said that? and put him on a desert Island.......He is still the richest person there.
I can't help but wonder if anyone here has had their own business where they had employees?
Sure as hell doesn't sound like it. i guess that is part of their problem with Trump. They have been so indoctrinated in the former status quo where GovCo is concerned, they just can't see where this is going. I can't wait to see how this all shakes out in a couple of months. Unfortunately, they will find something to bitch about and, if it comes to fruition, how many will refuse the $5K check. My bet is zero.........
Then he can eat his money. I bet bit-coin tastes just like air.
As would most people.
Yes-- both the richest...and the poorest!
And while that is true....of all the people on the island...his wealth is average!
Exactly! It’s good to see someone got it!
I'm wondering if you and the nine people who voted up your comment actually believe it, though. Do you? Was it Musk or his private sector employees that made those billions?
All together now....
Musk was the leader. Do you give 100% credit to the leader of an organization or is the credit distributed in some fashion?
I don't see how this answers the question.
You created a false dichotomy where either Musk or his employees made the billions of dollars.
Clearly the credit is distributed. My question was Socratic.
There was a point beyond that. It’s an analogy. Musk’s post essentially said Hitler wasn’t the bad guy. All his followers were. He’s not responsible for the nazi atrocities.
Setting aside this apparent attempt to de-demonize Hitler, let’s accept for the moment, the premise of the rest of the message.
If the guy in charge (Hitler) isn’t responsible for the bad things all his supporters do, then the other guy in charge (Musk) doesn’t get to take the credit and the money for the good things his employees do.
In my opinion, both the leader and his followers (Hitler and his brown shirts) are responsible for their atrocities. Likewise, Musk and his employees should get credit and compensation for his company’s success, but he seems to hoard it for himself.
Well. Something we agree on.
As for the false dichotomy, not so much. I was genuinely asking if he and the others believed the statement as written. The dichotomy was there, not in my question.
I don't think it said that at all. If you would, please see 3.1.1 for an explanation of why. It pretty much addresses the rest of your post.
I appreciate that interpretation, and it may well be the correct one. It’s not better, though. In your interpretation, Musk has decided to equate Americans - doing ordinary public service work - to Nazis.
The moral implications of brown shirts terrorizing and assaulting citizens cannot possibly compare to the work of forest rangers or tax auditors. Nor can the clear immorality of murder and torture committed in the Nazi camps be equated with anything a federal employee is doing.
He is also (via your interpretation) equating the laws of this country, generations of Congress members who voted on them, and the presidents who signed them with the leadership of the Nazi party. This comparison would also be absurd.
Only Elon can tell us what he thought the post meant, and I would expect him to deflect or lie if asked to clarify his intent.
Either way, I have seen no legitimate interpretation of this post that indicates we should consider it wisdom.
I could only go by your words. So your use of 'or' was intended to be inclusive, rather than exclusive.
If so, I can't imagine how such a conclusion could be reached and, no offense, you're just stating it is so without explaining it. I'm trying to see it from your point of view, but there's simply no logical way to make the x repost statement fit. In fact, if my interpretation is the correct one, as I believe, it works in favor of Trump and his underling's enemies and not in favor of them.
In fact, imagine if AOC had reposted that X message. It would be the Republicans saying that she's calling public servants Nazis while I, at least, would take her meaning to be " Those of you who serve Trump and carry out his bidding. Remember that Hitler didn't personally kill anyone, but his servants did and look what happened to them in the end. Be careful to remember that when you choose what to obey. "
Same thing, again. That certainly isn't arrived at through my interpretation. The hypothetical about AOC is what my interpretation arrives at. Not intending to offend, but in my opinion, people's reaction to what Musk said is due more to emotional impulses rather than consideration.
The only way to arrive at the interpretation in the above quotes as Musk's meaning is to believe that Musk is a closet anarchist and thinks all public servants everywhere, everywhen and by the fact of their very existence are Nazis. That is, unless you can explain otherwise as, again, you're not explaining how you got from what Musk reposted and your (not my) interpretation. Nor how my interpretation means what you think it does. You just insist it does.
Also, I'd like to point out that the Nazi connection is tangential to the repost, in my opinion, not the main point of it. Further, why choose the Nazi angle anyway, since there were two options? Apparently, what the repost actually said was...
So the seed article got it wrong to begin with.( I tried to find a screen shot of Musk's actual repost but couldn't find one ) So why is the Nazi option the one everyone chooses? Why not say Musk is saying public sector workers are all communists? By insisting on Nazi-ism, are we saying that therefor Mao's and Stalin's atrocities were justified because it wasn't based on Nazi-ism? "That's ridiculous!", one might say. Of course it is, and that's the point.
It's ridiculous because Nazi-ism and Communism are tangential to the point, which is no more or no less that those who do wrong in service to their leader are just as guilty as their leader. This is applicable regardless of the ideology, not contingent upon it.
However, there's one way that occurred to me while writing all of this that hadn't before. A sort of after the fact explanation of what Musk might have meant, if he's referring to actual public servants in our administration.
Assuming Musk is referring to events that have already occurred (Biden admin), he may have intended it as either a warning or an excuse to go after those who did wrong, or he deems to have done wrong. That is plausible. Notice that such a view doesn't necessitate or even imply identification with Nazis.
That's true. The one thing that's been my greatest wish in thinking about all this is to see whether or not the original poster of the retweet was responding to something someone else said. If so, it would add badly needed context to the whole thing. Even if we knew the answer, though, it still wouldn't necessarily tell us what he thought the post meant.
I'm not sure that's entirely supportable. doesn't seem like a guy who feels it's necessary to do such things.
I'm sorry to hear that. I can tell you that our military does. The Nuremburg trials, which is what the quote is all about, was something we kept in mind when deployed.
I’m a little busy today, so I’ll be brief. There is no good way to equate Stalin, Mao, Hitler, and their regimes to America, our laws, lawmakers, and workers. None.
No problem.
I completely agree. And make this point in my previous post. Attempting to read such a meaning into Musk's repost is completely unsupportable from the text itself and is merely projection, lacking evidence of Musk's intent. Put another way, lacking any evidence for Musk's intended meaning, they simply assigned it, apparently for the purpose of using it against him.
Since you're busy today, I suspect you went through my previous post fairly fast. Please consider reading it again when you have more time.
Asking for clarification, you do not see the dichotomy is implied in the statement I was responding to, which necessarily shaped the question I asked? In other words, is not "Was it Musk or his private sector employees that made those billions" the implied question the statement seeks to answer? If so, how could the question be anything else?
If you had used 'and/or' or added 'or both' or something like that then your meaning would have been clearer.
The context suggested exclusive or since Tacos stated that Must did not make billions of dollars but rather his employees did.
So if you have replied with "Was it Musk, his private sector employees, or both that made those billions?" then your question would have shown that a combination was a possibility.
I accepted your clarification, why are you pursuing this?
But those weren't my meaning as the statement implies an exclusive "or" dichotomy.
Except that showing there were other possibilities wasn't the reason I engaged Tacos! It was to ascertain whether he personally believed the statement.
Did you? It seems you did not, as you stated...
As, I stated above, it was not inclusive. Don't know how you could have taken it to mean that and I'm pursuing it because you keep getting it wrong. I don't care if you agree with my position but I do care if you mischaracterize it.
The part about who made Musk's trillion dollars is secondary to his equivocating about Nazis and Hitler. What do MAGA not get about there being no good comparisons? Musk had help at work and MAGA are Trump's slavish "Red Hats". What in Hell are we really talking about. What new Hell are MAGAs trying to justify?
Equivocating about Hitler and Nazi is not helping MAGA's case!
nazi, afrikaner, no difference ...
Bringing this to life. Thanks.
Do not ascribe quotes to me which I never made...
Maybe Musk should quit the Nazi salutes, already!
You wrote that you agreed with me and my comment was that it was a combination. That is an inclusive 'or'. One or the other is an exclusive 'or' (one or the other but not both).
Either you agree with me or you do not. If you say you agree with me and now state you do not, you are not being clear.
So let's start again.
Credit for Musk's billions goes to:
My position is that 3 is correct. You tell me your opinion on this and I will accept it as your opinion.
I am not in any way trying to mischaracterize your comment. You are yet again trying to pick a pointless fight over nothing.
I agree with everything you wrote here except anything concerning an inclusive 'or', because there is no such thing as an inclusive 'or'. That is not how 'or' works and I can't even imagine how anyone could write an inclusive 'or'.
Aside from that I agree with you because I understand what your point is. That, in asking the question "Did Musk make the billions or did his employees make it?", it implies an either/or when there's a third option available. I agreed with the third option. Both made the billions.
The problem we're having is I can't get you to understand that wasn't the issue being addressed and, in the context of what was being addressed, I did not provide a false dichotomy. The statement forced it due to the question I was asking. Did Tacos! believe it? I could have said something similar to what you've been saying, that there's a third option, but that assumes Tacos! actually believed the statement he wrote. Rather than assume, I wrote what I did to ask him if he believed the statement. Of course there was a third option, but that was beside the point.
I didn't say you tried to mischaracterize my comment, only that you did.
A demonstrably absurd declaration.
Then we agree. Good grief man, attempt to not turn every little fucking thing into an argument.
Please feel free to demonstrate, then. Never mind. It can be used inclusively, such as "she couldn't read or write". That said, my question is exclusive 'or'.
Right. You came in here and changed what the issue was and when I try to point out what the issue actually was, I'm turning it into an argument. Yeah, let's go with your idea.
Just ridiculous. Get that chip off your shoulder.
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Yep mines trolling, Tigs is not. Once again, outstanding moderation, sp style
Elon Musk is the enemy of the American people.
Trump is the enemy of the American people. Musk is just Trump's Heinrich Himmler considered the architect of the holocaust.
Yes, he is.
J.D. Vance is a bitter enemy of the American people.
Trump, Musk, Vance. Their hatred for the American people is palpable and real.
Typical leftist reactionary response when one does not understand that Trump and Vance are duly elected officials by the a large portion of the population. Musk is a legally appointed person who advises the president.
Because the hatred of Trump, etc is so overwhelming to coherent thought, the reactionaries on the left go straight to insulting and hating those they do not like
Not the Amercian people. Just to those who stand to lose money by his work with the current administration.
Musk is an enemy of the American people, American democracy and the American way of life.
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You do not hear any of the reactionary left complaining about getting rid of actual waste and fraud, you are hearing them complain ONLY because they are finding it and their slush funds are going away.
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I didn't expect much more out of him. He grew up privileged in South Africa. He saw apartheid, probably reveled in it.
He is a racist, a thug, and has no moral code. I want to wipe that stupid shit eating grin off his stupid face
... with what? I have quite a few suggestions ...
URP!
The point is well made.
Despots like hitler are nothing without brown shirts to do their bidding.
Nothing.
The point is way too subtle for most progressives.
Subtle as The Holocaust. Subtle as Nazis. Subtle as Hitler...
Anyone who reads that tweet as anything other than condemnation of Hitler should be embarrassed at their lack of reading comprehension. Seriously. It's so egregious I almost hope it's in bad faith because the alternative is pitiable.
It seems progressives are overcompensating for their support of the party that literally murders Jews in 2025, by hysterically overreacting at every mention of Hitler, who is in the past and easy to condemn. It's simply deflection from their tacit of support of living nazis.
That's an extremely bizarre comment.
The things some people will tell themselves for partisan politics.
It’s cognitive dissonance at work. Some people can’t reconcile the fact that the people they support emulate and even praise the nazi regime.
It's also arguably an example of or akin to what the brilliant Yale historian, Prof. Timothy Snyder, has labeled "schizo-fascism".
Yes, I agree completely. If folks are so triggered by Trump, that they make Musks comment somehow supportive of Hitler actions in any way, well … more discussion will not help.
Your post is a prefect example of that. Believing the post praised the nazi regime is simply batshit crazy. It bears no relation to reality.
Do you imagine he was praising Stalin and Mao too?
That's become clear. those folks obviously aren't even pretending to pay attention to the english language or logic at this point. It is just raw emotion and wishcasting.
"Musk said Hitler, therefore he's praising him" is the extent of the "thought" they can muster.
I didn’t say he was praising any of them in that particular post. I believe he was making an excuse for Hitler because on several previous occasions, both he and Trump have said or done things that show approval of, or a desire to emulate Hitler and his regime.
Good. Let's be clear that this particular post is not praising or making excuses for Hitler, Stalin or Mao, and that anyone who reads it as doing so, or downplaying the holocaust, struggles with basic reading comprehension.
The whole point is that history's greatest monsters (Hitler, Stalin and Mao) wouldn't have been able to carry out their desire to murder millions without assistance from compliant government employees.
That’s your opinion, and that’s fine. I think it’s a reasonable alternative. Do you endorse this equating of American law, lawmakers, and public employees to the Nazi regime?
So, what you're saying is that there's no way Trump could be Hitler-esque because he doesn't have a large poorly educated mob of loyal sycophants willing to do anything asked of them by their Dear Leader? Hmmm. There seems to be a flaw somewhere in that logic. Oh yeah! Trump does have a large poorly educated mob of loyal sycophants willing to do anything asked of them!
You usually fail when you try to put words in my mouth. This attempt is no different
My comment is clear and concise. It requires no more elucidation.
None
I've been agreeing with you, not putting words in your mouth. Yes, I agree. Whether the despots are long dead or currently wreaking havoc in our country, your point is not lost. Without the millions of enablers, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Mussolini, Trump, none of them would have been able to cause so much damage had they not had their "brown shirts" "interior ministry" "red guards" "black shirts" or "MAGAites".
So … he’s actually trying to turn his brand into diarrhea now?
Musk is just out in the open full Nazi, not even hiding it. Covering up for Hitler, blaming all those other Nazis for following orders.
If he thinks that is some kind of justification for himself destroying the lives of millions of Americans and thousands of veterans who work for American government who are now losing their jobs and livelihoods at his hands he can f off to South Africa any day.
It's almost like his personal extreme racism was something he couldn't get out is his system in Africa so now he has the keys to the American kingdom given by king Trump and the damage he is inflicting on us is what he wished he could have done to his own country.
I think he believes that Americans will soon (already?) actively appreciate Nazi pageantry. These people live in bubbles made of their fantasies.
It’ good to know that after all these decades that wrongly accused Adolph Hitler is no longer guilty to the mass murder of millions.
finally justice
Also... Did you know that European settlers didn't REALLY kill many Native Americans? They accidentally, completely unintentionally introduced a few pathogens, and made a few poor moves concerning the ecosystem and environment... but they were Very Good People, with the best of intentions.
It wasn't their fault that your ancestors were so fragile.
He toured Auschwitz with his little boy on his shoulders, there is a photo op of them with a tour group. The leader of this group tour spoke out against him and his Nazi salute. He is becoming more and more clear about his Nazi leanings and Americans need to pay attention.