(The Hill) — Tech billionaire Elon Musk reflected on his speech after President Trump’s inauguration in January, while lashing out at the media for misportraying what he called a loving gesture as a Nazi salute.
Musk, who has played an influential role in helping Trump overhaul the government during the president’s first 100 days in office, slammed those who have criticized his role as an adviser in the administration and for comparing his rhetoric and mannerisms to Nazi Germany during a recent interview on Fox’s “My View with Lara Trump.”
The Fox host — also the president’s daughter-in-law — invoked the billionaire’s childhood in South Africa amid the Apartheid regime when asking how he felt about the comparisons.
“Well, I mean, look, it’s a relentless propaganda campaign, which obviously President Trump has experienced for a very long time, 20 years, maybe longer,” he said in the interview, set to air Saturday evening. “And politics is a blood sport, so they’re going to come up with whatever attacks they can to destroy the public perception of someone.”
“Now, obviously, I’ve not harmed anyone in my life, so it’s an outrageous thing to claim that I’m a Nazi,” the Tesla CEO added, while defending Trump against similar attacks.
Musk’s comments come after Democrats have lavished criticism on the billionaire for his advisory role leading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to conduct mass layoffs across the federal workforce and cut funding from various programs. His gesture at the post-inauguration event and influence over the recent German election also raised eyebrows among critics.
The key Trump ally cast at least some of the blame on legacy media, saying it’s “disappointing how well propaganda works.”
“If you repeat a lie, you know, the sort of ‘he’s a Nazi lie’ enough times, some people actually believe it, especially people that still believe the legacy news, you know,” he told Lara Trump.
He added later, “They really are trying every angle to get me… if they could press a button and kill me. In reality, they would press that button immediately. But since … I’m a little difficult to kill. They are doing character assassination instead.”
Some have come to his defense in recent months, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Anti-Defamation League, a nonprofit focused on combating antisemitism.
The relationship between Trump and Musk has also been in headlines recently as the tech guru’s status as a White House special employee is set to expire on May 30. The president, however, said earlier this week that the billionaire, who also owns SpaceX and the social platform X, could stay as long as he wants.
Musk, in the interview Saturday, described his friendship with the commander-in-chief.
“I do consider the president a friend. I think he considers me a friend and we get along very well,” he told Lara Trump, the wife of the president’s middle son Eric Trump.
“I think probably if you asked us both the same set of questions in two different rooms, 80 percent of the time we would come up with the same answer,” Musk said, adding that, “we almost always agree.”
