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Fact Check: Musk reposted post that said, 'Stalin, Mao and Hitler didn't murder millions of people'

  

Category:  News & Politics

Via:  jbb  •  yesterday  •  9 comments

By:   Yahoo News

Fact Check: Musk reposted post that said, 'Stalin, Mao and Hitler didn't murder millions of people'
The post, originally shared by another user, read, "Stalin, Mao and Hitler didn't murder millions of people. Their public sector workers did."

S E E D E D   C O N T E N T


Jordan LilesFri, March 14, 2025 at 11:00 PM UTC7 min readGetty ImagesYahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.Generate Key Takeaways

Claim:

U.S. President Donald Trump's adviser, Elon Musk, reposted another user's post on X in March 2025, showing a screenshot reading, "Stalin, Mao and Hitler didn't murder millions of people. Their public sector workers did."

Rating:

Rating: True

In mid-March 2025, an X user posted (archived) that U.S. President Donald Trump's adviser, Elon Musk, "amplified" another user's post that displayed an image reading, "Stalin, Mao and Hitler didn't murder millions of people. Their public sector workers did." Readers also emailed Snopes to ask if Musk truly reposted the post.

A review of Musk's X activity found that on March 13, 2025, he truly reposted the thought saying that Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, Communist China's founding leader Mao Zedong and German dictator and Nazi leader Adolf Hitler didn't murder millions of people, and that "public sector workers did." In other words, the repost genuinely existed, and no one doctored the screenshot with any image-editing tools.

Specifically, Musk used the repost function on X, previously known as a retweet in past years on Twitter, to share another user's post. That other user's post featured a screenshot of a different person's post (archived) about Stalin, Mao and Hitler, tweeted years before on Jan. 30, 2019.

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The White House did not respond to a request for comment, including a question asking for the Trump administration's stance about the thought expressed in the post.

One popular Facebook page featured a post (archived) with over 100,000 engagements claiming Musk deleted his repost. However, as of publication time, Musk's repost still appeared on his account.

The Indeed job search website defined present-day public sector workers as people employed at federal, state and municipal levels who generally receive government funding. That's similar to the funding Trump said he tasked Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency to find and eliminate — dubbed by DOGE as "waste, fraud and abuse." Examples of modern public sector employees include police and fire officials, other emergency-service workers, teachers, health care workers and military service people.

Stalin, Zedong and Hitler


Britannica numbered victims of Stalin's reign in the tens of millions. Stanford Report similarly published, "Stalin had nearly a million of his own citizens executed, beginning in the 1930s. Millions more fell victim to forced labor, deportation, famine, massacres and detention and interrogation by Stalin's henchmen." BBC and International Business Times reported further details.

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In 1994, The Washington Post published of Zedong, "While most scholars are reluctant to estimate a total number of 'unnatural deaths' in China under Mao, evidence shows he was in some way responsible for at least 40 million deaths and perhaps 80 million or more. This includes deaths he was directly responsible for and deaths resulting from disastrous policies he refused to change." Brittanica reported additional information, as did The Washington Post in 2016.

Regarding Hitler's leadership of Nazi Germany, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) hosts detailed pages offering a wealth of information about both the Holocaust and Hitler.

The U.S. National WWII Museum also published, "The Holocaust was Nazi Germany's deliberate, organized, state-sponsored persecution and genocide of approximately six million European Jews. The genocide of the Jews is also sometimes referred to as Shoah, a Hebrew word for 'catastrophe.' The Nazis also persecuted other groups, perpetrating a genocide against the Roma (derogatorily called 'gypsies'), in which more than 250,000 people were murdered, and killing over three million Soviet prisoners of war, nearly two million Poles, over 250,000 people with disabilities, over 1,000 Jehovah's Witnesses, hundreds of men accused of homosexuality and other victims."

Musk's salute and alleged antisemitism


One reader who emailed about Musk's repost shared an Instagram meme (archived) that described the repost and included a photo of the much-publicized, twice-given Inauguration Day gesture that the online neo-Nazi and far-right communities interpreted as a Nazi salute. Following the moment on Jan. 20, Musk said, "Thank you. My heart goes out to you." Days later, he blamed (archived) the "legacy media" for allegedly misinterpreting his actions.

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In May 2024, Musk reinstated the X account for Nick Fuentes, a Holocaust-denying white supremacist. Musk posted (archived) of Fuentes' reinstatement to "let him be crushed by the comments and Community Notes," adding, "It is better to have anti whatever out in the open to be rebutted than grow simmering in the darkness."

In November 2023, Musk replied (archived), "You have said the actual truth," in response to a user who created a post (archived) saying, in part, that Jewish people support "dialectical hatred against whites." Musk later postedclarifications to his reply. Axios reported of the discussion, "Elon Musk backs antisemitic claim; Tesla shares tumble."

Sources:


"Adolf Hitler." U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) , https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/adolf-hitler.

"Adolf Hitler: Man and Monster." BBC Teach , https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/articles/zbrx8xs.

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Contreras, Russell. "Elon Musk to Reinstate X Account of White Nationalist Nick Fuentes." Axios , 3 May 2024, https://www.axios.com/2024/05/03/elon-musk-nick-fuentes-x-account.

Dickinson, Tim. "Right-Wing Extremists Are Abuzz Over Musk's Straight-Arm Salute." Rolling Stone , 20 Jan. 2025, https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/elon-musk-salute-reaction-right-wing-extremists-1235241866/.

Ghosh, Palash R. "How Many People Did Joseph Stalin Kill?" International Business Times , 5 Mar. 2013, https://www.ibtimes.com/how-many-people-did-joseph-stalin-kill-1111789.

Gilbert, David. "Neo-Nazis Love the Nazi-Like Salutes Elon Musk Made at Trump's Inauguration." Wired , 20 Jan. 2025, https://www.wired.com/story/neo-nazis-love-elon-musk-nazi-like-salutes-trumps-inauguration/.

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Haven, Cynthia. "Stalin Killed Millions. A Stanford Historian Answers the Question, Was It Genocide?" Stanford Report , Sept. 2010, https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2010/09/naimark-stalin-genocide-092310.

"How Many People Did the Nazis Murder?" U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) , https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/documenting-numbers-of-victims-of-the-holocaust-and-nazi-persecution.

Indeed Employer Content Team. "A Guide to Public vs. Private Sector Employment." Indeed.com , 27 Jan. 2025, https://www.indeed.com/hire/c/info/public-vs-private-sector.

"Joseph Stalin | Biography, World War II, Death, & Facts." Britannica , https://www.britannica.com/biography/Joseph-Stalin.

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"Joseph Stalin: National Hero or Cold-Blooded Murderer?" BBC Teach , https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/articles/zhv747h.

Liles, Jordan. "Did Musk Give 'Nazi Salute' at Trump's 2025 Inauguration Rally? Here's What We Know." Snopes , 21 Jan. 2025, https://www.snopes.com//news/2025/01/20/musk-nazi-salute/.

---. "Musk's X Didn't Verify Accounts Representing Hitler." Snopes , 26 Feb. 2025, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/musk-hitler-verifiy-accounts/.

"Mao Zedong - Chinese Revolution, Communism, Chairman." Britannica , https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mao-Zedong/The-road-to-power.

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Primack, Dan. "Elon Musk Backs Antisemitic Claim; Tesla Shares Tumble." Axios , 16 Nov. 2023, https://www.axios.com/2023/11/16/elon-musk-antisemitic-claim-tesla-shares.

Schram, Stuart Reynolds. "Mao Zedong | Biography & Facts." Britannica , https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mao-Zedong.

Somin, Ilya. "Remembering the Biggest Mass Murder in the History of the World." The Washington Post , 3 Aug. 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/08/03/giving-historys-greatest-mass-murderer-his-due/.

Strauss, Valerie, and Daniel Southerland. "How Many Died? New Evidence Suggests Far Higher Numbers for the Victims of Mao Zedong's Era." The Washington Post , 16 July 1994, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1994/07/17/how-many-died-new-evidence-suggests-far-higher-numbers-for-the-victims-of-mao-zedongs-era/01044df5-03dd-49f4-a453-a033c5287bce/.

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"The Holocaust." The National WWII Museum | New Orleans , 8 May 2024, https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/holocaust.

Wendling, Mike. "White House Criticises Elon Musk over 'hideous' Antisemitic Lie." BBC News , 17 Nov. 2023, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-67446800.

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JBB
Professor Principal
1  seeder  JBB    yesterday

Elon posted and deleted tweet vindicating Hitler!

 
 
 
Vic Eldred
Professor Principal
1.1  Vic Eldred  replied to  JBB @1    23 hours ago

Was that a vindication?  I thought it was an indictment of the deep state.

BTW the title should include the second line of the reposted tweet. It is misleading otherwise.

One more thing: this non-story is now posted twice.

 
 
 
Sean Treacy
Professor Principal
1.2  Sean Treacy  replied to  JBB @1    21 hours ago
Elon posted and deleted tweet vindicating Hitler!

Now that's comedy. 

 
 
 
JBB
Professor Principal
2  seeder  JBB    yesterday

original

 
 
 
Nerm_L
Professor Expert
3  Nerm_L    23 hours ago

Musk is not glorifying Hitler, Stalin, or Mao.  Musk is not claiming what Hitler, Stalin, or Mao did was proper, correct, and desirable.  Musk is not posting pro-NAZI propaganda.  Musk is calling for Nuremberg trials against the bureaucratic flunkies.  

That's the way we were treated during the first reinvention of government.  Gore and Gingrich vilified 'damned gubmit workers' the same way.  Of course, back then, the little keffiyeh pissheads were part of the Clinton cult.  (And they still are.)

Musk is telling us that government workers represent the most evil examples of human history.  Been there, done that.  Savor the moment folks; It's deja vu all over again.

 
 
 
Tacos!
Professor Guide
3.1  Tacos!  replied to  Nerm_L @3    22 hours ago
Musk is not posting pro-NAZI propaganda.  Musk is calling for Nuremberg trials against the bureaucratic flunkies.  

Whichever it is, neither is a good look - and either should be condemned,

 
 
 
Nerm_L
Professor Expert
3.1.1  Nerm_L  replied to  Tacos! @3.1    21 hours ago
Whichever it is, neither is a good look - and either should be condemned,

Gee, where were you 30 years ago?  My civil service counted against me when applying for a job.  A convicted felon had a better chance to be hired than I did.  Don't lambast Musk when Al Gore did the same damned thing 30 years ago.  

 
 
 
Tacos!
Professor Guide
3.1.2  Tacos!  replied to  Nerm_L @3.1.1    17 hours ago
Gee, where were you 30 years ago?  My civil service counted against me when applying for a job.  A convicted felon had a better chance to be hired than I did.

Why is your past my responsibility?

Don't lambast Musk when Al Gore did the same damned thing 30 years ago.  

You have some personal issues that are very distracting from the actual topic in front of us. I can criticize one man without taking the extra step to criticize other people who aren’t in the story. If Al Gore - or anyone else - equated the American worker to Nazis, I would have a problem with that. There is no reason for you to suggest otherwise.

 
 
 
Sparty On
Professor Expert
4  Sparty On    21 hours ago

How many more times are you going to repost the same content?

 
 

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