A hot potato: Elon Musk is a lot of things: the world’s richest person, CEO of several companies, self-proclaimed edge-lord. He lived up to that last description yesterday by posting a tweet that made a satirical comparison between Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau and Adolf Hitler, drawing criticism from the Jewish community.
Musk was replying to a tweet from crypto news publication Coindesk about Trudeau ordering Canadian authorities not to interact with 34 different crypto addresses tied to the country’s ongoing trucker protests.
Those involved in the protests are objecting to a requirement that truckers be vaccinated against Covid-19 to cross the border. They have camped out at the Canadian capital and are blocking border crossings, leading to Trudeau using Canada’s Emergencies Act to halt funding for the protestors.
The Tesla boss posted a meme that showed the words “Stop comparing me to Justin Trudeau” above an image of Adolf Hitler and “I had a budget” underneath.
Musk soon deleted the tweet, but not before it drew a response from the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum, located on the site of a former Nazi concentration camp. It called Musk’s use of the image “sad and disturbing.”
Using the image of Adolf Hitler & therefore exploiting the tragedy of all people who suffered, were humiliated, tortured & murdered by the totalitarian regime of Nazi Germany created by him is sad & disturbing. It disrespects the memory of all victims & hurts many people.
— Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) February 17, 2022
Time’s Person of the Year for 2021 followed up with another tweet that suggested his followers read The Wages of Destruction, which details the economic history of Nazi Germany.
For an in-depth explanation, read https://t.co/eEojD2dQ2k
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 17, 2022
As noted by Gizmodo, Musk moved from his birthplace of South Africa to Canada in 1988 at the age of 19 to avoid military service. He attended Queen’s University in Ontario, transferring to the University of Pennsylvania just a couple of years later. The SpaceX CEO holds both Canadian and US citizenship.
Musk is no stranger to controversy, of course. His tweet calling the rescuer of a soccer team in Thailand a “pedo guy” resulted in a lawsuit, which Musk won, and he was a vocal critic of the pandemic lockdowns, referring to them as “fascist.” There was also his tweet about taking Tesla private in 2019 that incurred the wrath of the SEC.
