Elon Musk is still peeved that people likened him to a Nazi after he made an evocative gesture resembling a fascist salute on President Donald Trump’s inauguration day.
The Tesla CEO said Tuesday that he does not regret going full MAGA. He said it was the “propaganda” legacy media that turned him into a divisive figure and tanked his company’s car sales, not his own words and actions as Trump’s temporary No. 2.
“How many legacy media publications, talk shows, whatever, try to claim that I was a Nazi because of some random hand gesture gesture at a rally where all I said was that my heart goes out to you,” Musk told CNBC. “And I was talking about space travel, and yet the legacy media promote—promoted that as though that was a deliberate Nazi gesture, where, when, in fact, every politician, any public speaker who’s spoken for any length of time, has made the exact same gesture.”
Musk’s response came after his interviewer, David Faber, asked if he had any regrets about how he ran the Department of Government Efficiency, which he no longer leads daily.
Faber pointed out that anger with Musk may have stemmed more from his alliance with Trump and his work at DOGE than the gesture. He noted that the hordes of Americans Musk antagonized were current or potential Tesla customers—a reference to the electric car manufacturer’s poor first quarter, which saw its sales and revenue drop significantly.
“Unfortunately, what I’ve learned is that legacy media propaganda is very effective at making people believe things that aren’t true,” Musk said.
Faber chimed in, “What would an example of that be?”
Musk continued, “That I am a Nazi.”
Tesla’s share price dipped sharply at 2:20 p.m., which was around the same time Musk mentioned his “Nazi” accusations. In 45 minutes, the stock price went from $354 to $342, a 3.39 percent drop. It slightly rebounded after, closing at $343 for the day.
Musk, 53, has stringently denied allegations he gave a Roman or Nazi salute in Capital One Arena on Jan. 20, shortly after Trump was inaugurated. Whether people agree or not has largely broken down by political lines.
Trump’s biggest supporters defended the gesture as accidental, made by an awkward and excited man—a conclusion the Anti-Defamation League also reached, just a day before it had to condemn Musk for making Holocaust jokes on X.
Faber said on Tuesday that he spoke to people close to Musk who were adamant that his gesture was not a Nazi salute.
Those explanations did not stop America’s actual neo-Nazis from celebrating the gesture. It was further condemned by officials in Germany, where such gestures are considered a crime, and by many prominent Democrats.
Musk suggested customers should not care about the political views of a company’s chief executive, even if that very executive facilitated and celebrated their firing.
“I mean, look, for most people…When you buy a product, I mean, how much do you care about the political views of the CEO, or do you even know what they are?” Musk told Faber.
Faber also mentioned to Musk that DOGE, now four months into its official existence, remained well below its savings expectations. DOGE’s website says it has made $170 billion in savings, which is well short of the “at least $2 trillion” that Musk vowed to slash in his first year at DOGE. Musk referenced that figure in Tuesday’s interview.
In reality, Faber noted that DOGE’s savings are likely much lower than that.
“That’s your number that’s out there,” Faber said. “A lot of people take issue with it and say, ‘Well, you know, taxpayers’ expenses, such as paid leave, that’s $135 billion that’s got to come back. IRS collection may go down as a result of cuts there.”
Faber then fact-checked Musk with data he received from Grok, which is Musk’s AI company that he hopes can compete with OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
“We asked Grok,” Faber said. “It said between five and 32 billion is what you’ve actually saved.”
Musk countered that Faber likely asked the question wrong before asking, “So why are you attacking this, given that we’ve made so much progress?”
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