Musk ramps up DOGE as Tesla stock tanks, backlash grows
Tesla’s stock dropped about 15% on March 10. Still, CEO Elon Musk has no plans to slow down his work in the U.S. government.
Billionaire Elon Musk, who has been cutting thousands of federal workers as the head of Department of Government Efficiency on Thursday reposted a message on X saying “Hitler didn’t murder millions of people. Public sector employees did.”
The post read: “Stalin, Mao, and Hitler didn’t murder millions of people. Their public sector employees did.”
The infamous world leaders have been responsible for millions of deaths.
Musk, who owns X and has more than 219 million followers on the platform, appears to have later taken down his repost. His post drew furious reactions from workers and the Anti- Defamation League. The repost also comes at a time when the federal cost cutting measures undertaken by Musk have spurred “Tesla Takedown” protests, with Tesla owners being harassed and multiple dealerships being vandalized across the nation.
Lee Saunders, union president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees of the AFL-CIO, fired back.
“America’s public service workers − our nurses, teachers, firefighters, librarians − chose making our communities safe, healthy and strong over getting rich,” Saunders said in a statement. “They are not, as the world’s richest man implies, genocidal murderers.”
“Elon Musk and the billionaires in this administration have no idea what real people go through every day. That’s why he’s so willing to take a chainsaw to people’s jobs, Medicaid, Social Security and Medicare,” Saunders said.
The Anti-Defamation League, a nonprofit that seeks to combat antisemitism, said the post was “deeply disturbing” in a post on X.
“It is deeply disturbing and irresponsible for someone with a large public platform to elevate the kind of rhetoric that serves to undermine the seriousness of these issues,” said ADL’s X post.
Back in January, Musk sparked controversy with a gesture that drew comparisons to the Nazi salute while speaking at President Donald Trump’s inauguration event.
Back then, ADL defended Musk’s gesture as “awkward” while it was being panned by critics.
“It seems that @elonmusk made an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute, but again, we appreciate that people are on edge,” read ADL’s post.
Since the “Tesla Takedown” protests began, Tesla stock has plummeted, plunging by close to 50% since its peak in December.
Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy is a White House Correspondent for USA TODAY. You can follow her on X @SwapnaVenugopal