Washington, DC – After Elon Musk made an apparent Nazi salute at an inauguration rally for United States President Donald Trump, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) rushed to defend the SpaceX founder.
The self-described anti-Semitism watchdog and “leading anti-hate organization in the world” dismissed Musk’s raised arm as “an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm” in a social media post on Monday.
Months earlier, however, Jonathan Greenblatt, the head of the staunchly pro-Israel ADL, compared the Palestinian keffiyeh to the Nazi swastika.
Activists say the contrast between the ADL’s hurried defence of Musk and its efforts to demonise Palestinians and their supporters shows that the group is more focused on silencing voices critical of Israel than it is on fighting anti-Semitism.
“The ADL is being crystal clear about where it stands,” said Beth Miller, political director at Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP).
“They have made it as clear as possible that they are not a reputable source of information when it comes to anti-Semitism. They are not actually prioritising the protection of Jewish communities at all.”
Miller called the ADL a “hateful group” dedicated to smearing Palestinian rights advocates.
For years, the ADL has been a go-to NGO for government agencies and the corporate world when it comes to anti-Semitism, hate crimes and broader civil rights issues.
The group has hosted top Israeli and US politicians, FBI directors, celebrities and businesspeople.
The group’s annual “audit” of anti-Semitic incidents in the US — which last year included “certain expressions of opposition to Zionism, as well as support for resistance against Israel” — often gets cited by government agencies and legislation.
Still, Palestinian rights supporters and US-based Muslim groups have long sounded the alarm about the ADL and its stalwart support for Israel.
In recent years, the group has come under increased criticism for the perception that it has gone soft on right-wing figures accused of bigotry, as long as they support Israel.
Those accusations escalated after Musk’s gesture on Monday.
“Just to be clear, you are defending a Heil Hitler salute that was performed and repeated for emphasis and clarity,” progressive Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wrote on social media in response to the ADL’s defence of Musk.
“People can officially stop listening to you as any sort of reputable source of information now.”
Just to be clear, you are defending a Heil Hitler salute that was performed and repeated for emphasis and clarity.
People can officially stop listening to you as any sort of reputable source of information now. You work for them. Thank you for making that crystal clear to all. https://t.co/0gLdMCU3UV
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) January 21, 2025
Musk’s gesture
While speaking at the Capital One Arena following Trump’s inauguration, Musk put his hand to his chest, then swiftly raised his arm as he thanked the crowd for electing the Republican president.
The 53-year-old billionaire then turned around and did it again.
His motion resembled the Nazi gesture — known as the “Sieg Heil”, German for “hail victory” — which has roots in an ancient Roman salute.
“My heart goes out to you. It is thanks to you that the future of civilisation is assured,” Musk said.
While it is not uncommon for politicians to extend their arms to greet an audience, the combination of Musk’s rhetoric about “civilisation” and the repeated gesture raised many eyebrows.
Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a history professor at New York University who writes about fascism and authoritarianism, said in a social media post that Musk’s gesture was “a Nazi salute — and a very belligerent one too”.
Musk has not provided a detailed explanation of what happened, but he did brush off the accusations, saying that his critics “need better dirty tricks”.
“The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is sooo tired,” Musk wrote on X. He later shared a post showing Democratic politicians with their arms raised and dismissed legacy media as “pure propaganda”.
But Matan Arad-Neeman, a spokesperson for IfNotNow, a Jewish progressive group, rejected Musk’s apparent denial.
“I’m descended from Holocaust survivors, and I know a Nazi salute when I see one, and that was absolutely what Elon Musk was doing,” Arad-Neeman told Al Jazeera.
He added that the ADL’s defence of Musk was “obscene”. He juxtaposed the group’s response with its reaction to antiwar protesters pushing for a ceasefire in Gaza, where Israel has pursued a devastating military campaign since 2023.
“It’s not surprising — although it is shameful — that the ADL has spent recent years focusing their attention on egging on a crackdown on protesters for Palestinian human rights and antiwar protesters,” Arad-Neeman said.
ADL-Musk feud
The ADL’s backing of Musk would have been unthinkable less than a year and a half ago, when the billionaire entrepreneur threatened to sue the pro-Israel group over allegations that it was preventing companies from advertising on X after he acquired the platform.
Musk’s attacks, which the ADL described as “dangerous and deeply irresponsible”, were also perceived by critics as anti-Semitic. Some criticised Musk for blaming a Jewish group for his new company’s shortcomings.
But weeks after accusing X of “elevating” anti-Semites, the ADL welcomed what it called the platform’s “intent” to address anti-Semitism.
In October 2023, Greenblatt described Musk as an “amazing entrepreneur and extraordinary innovator”, positively comparing him with the pioneering industrialist Henry Ford, who is widely believed to have espoused anti-Semitic views.
Even after Musk and the ADL appeared to bury the hatchet, the X owner responded to a post accusing Jewish communities of promoting “dialectical hatred” against white people by writing: “You have said the actual truth”.
Musk visited Israel in November of that year, weeks into its war on Gaza, and met with the country’s leaders.
Arad-Neeman said bigots should not be able to “wave away their anti-Semitism” by saying that they support Israel.
“It’s unacceptable,” he told Al Jazeera. “It is offensive to the vast majority of American Jews who are terrified by people like the Proud Boys, by people like Elon Musk, by people like Donald Trump who cosy up to white supremacists and fascists.”
Besides his comments on the Jewish people, Musk has voiced support for far-right groups across the world.
Last month, he sparked outrage when he said only Germany’s far-right party, the AfD, could save the country.
Musk has also taken up the cause of the British anti-Muslim campaigner Tommy Robinson, who is in jail for contempt of court as part of a libel case. A court found that Robinson had falsely accused a Syrian refugee schoolboy of attacking “young English girls”.
The ADL recently denounced Robinson, whose legal name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, as an “anti-Muslim bigot”.
‘Censoring our speech’
Abed Ayoub, the executive director at the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), said he wished the ADL would extend the same careful approach and benefit of the doubt it offered Musk to members of Arab and Muslim communities.
“This organisation has a history of censoring our speech and going after our speech and our freedom of expression, and it has made life difficult for many Arabs, Palestinians, Muslims and our supporters in this country,” Ayoub told Al Jazeera.
The ADL opposed a proposed mosque in New York in 2010 because it was close to the site of the 9/11 attacks at the World Trade Center, siding with far-right and Islamophobic groups.
The group has admitted more than a decade later that its position on the mosque was “wrong”.
More recently, the ADL has accused protesters supporting Palestinian rights — including left-wing Jewish groups — of promoting anti-Semitism.
Earlier this month, the ADL featured on its website a Jewish insider story slamming CBS News for interviewing Josh Paul and Hala Rharrit, two former US officials who quit their government jobs as a protest against Washington’s support for Israel’s war on Gaza.
The article emphasised a vague connection that Paul and Rharrit have with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a civil rights group.
Last year, Greenblatt slammed members of then-President Joe Biden’s administration for meeting with Osama Siblani, the publisher of the Michigan-based Arab American News, over what he called “sympathy” for Hezbollah and Hamas.
The ADL has also been an uncompromising supporter of Israel’s war on Gaza, which rights groups and United Nations advocates have described as a genocide.
Ayoub said it is easy to get behind the ADL’s “mission on paper”: to fight hatred and bigotry. But more people are becoming aware of the group’s actual positions, he added.
“We’re starting to see a crack in their support, and we’re starting to see people call them out, especially on things like defending Elon Musk at the speed at which they did,” Ayoub told Al Jazeera.
The ADL did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment by the time of publication.
On Tuesday, Bend the Arc, a progressive Jewish group, started circulating a petition calling for the ADL to retract its defence of Musk.
“The ADL claims to be an expert on antisemitism,” the petition reads.
“They are quick to defame pro-Palestinian students, Black and brown elected officials, writers, and professors over accusations of antisemitism. But when the world’s wealthiest man performed a Nazi salute while the world watched, they came to his defense?”