Elon Musk's "Button To Kill" Reply Amid Renewed Backlash Over Nazi Salute

NDTV

04-05-2025

Elon Musk, facing fresh backlash over allegations of promoting white supremacist signals, has accused his critics of orchestrating a "relentless propaganda campaign" against him. "If they could press a button and kill me in reality, they would press that button immediately," Musk, who faced backlash for the Nazi-salute earlier this year, said in an interview with Fox News.
"But since I'm a little difficult to kill, they're doing character assassination instead. They really are trying on every angle to get me," he said.
He did not name specific individuals or groups that were out to "kill" him, but vaguely blamed "people who still believe the legacy news."
The criticism comes from the Tesla CEO's controversial gesture at a Donald Trump rally in January, where he was seen raising his right arm in what many interpreted as a "Roman salute", a move historically associated with Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party.
Despite denying sympathies with Nazi ideology, Musk has attracted criticism for a series of posts on X that include wordplay referencing infamous Nazi figures. In a January post, Musk wrote: "Don't say Hess to Nazi accusations! Some people will Goebbels anything down! Stop Goring your enemies! His pronouns would've been He/Himmler! Bet you did nazi that coming."
The backlash intensified further after his estranged daughter, Vivian Jenna Wilson, publicly condemned the gesture. Speaking to Teen Vogue, the 20-year-old described the moment as "insane."
"The Nazi salute s**t was insane. Honey, we're going to call a fig a fig, and we're going to call a Nazi salute what it was. That s***t was definitely a Nazi salute. The crowd is equally to blame, and I feel like people are not talking about that. That crowd should be denounced," she said.
In a previous appearance on the Joe Rogan podcast, Elon Musk addressed the controversy surrounding the gesture. Musk defended himself by saying, "I hope people realise I'm not a Nazi," explaining that the gesture was made in a positive spirit and not intended to promote fascist ideology. He argued that true Nazism is about war and genocide, not gestures or fashion.