Under-fire Musk thanks Netanyahu for defending him

Elon Musk has thanked Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for defending him amid a growing backlash over the billionaire’s controversial hand gesture at a supporters’ rally in Washington on the day of Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Musk was compelled to deny allegations that the straight-arm gesture he made while addressing Trump supporters at the Capital One Arena on Monday, resembled a Nazi salute. He has dismissed the accusations as a “dirty trick” by his critics, saying they should find better ways of attacking than calling every opponent “Hitler.” 

On Thursday, Musk took to his social media platform X, writing that “the radical leftists are really upset that they had to take time out of their busy day praising Hamas to call me a Nazi.”

In a show of support, Netanyahu posted on X, calling Musk “a great friend of Israel” who is being “falsely smeared.”

He said that Musk visited Israel after the October 7 attack by Hamas and has since “repeatedly and forcefully supported Israel’s right to defend itself…”

Musk reposted Netanyahu’s statement, thanking him for his support.

The businessman traveled to Israel in November 2023 amid accusations of facilitating threats against Jews and xenophobia on his social media platform. At the time, he was also being accused of personally promoting an anti-Semitic trope after he said he agreed with an X user who suggested that Jewish people were stoking “hatred against whites.”

Musk has denied the allegations, threatening suspension on his X platform for anyone advocating “for the genocide of any group.” 

During his visit, Musk met with Netanyahu and the country’s president Isaac Herzog. Netanyahu took Musk to tour Kfar Aza, the kibbutz in southern Israel struck by Hamas during its October 7 incursion, and showed the visitor the 44-minute film Israel had put together to showcase the Palestinian group’s alleged atrocities.

In a press conference after meeting Netanyahu, Musk declared that Israel had “no choice” but to destroy Hamas, calling the Palestinian militant group a “poisonous regime.” In a similar briefing at Auschwitz, which the billionaire visited in January 2024, Musk declared that he had been “frankly naive” about the alleged rise of anti-Semitism in the West.