--- title: "Elon Musk Appears at Rally Linked to Neo Nazis, Tells Germany to Get Over the Holocaust" description: "Elon Musk told a rally for Germany's far-right, nationalistic AfD party that Germans should move past the horrors of WWII and the Holocaust." date: "2025-01-27" modified: "2025-01-27" authors: - name: "Maggie Harrison Dupré" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/mharrison" url: "https://futurism.com/elon-musk-rally-nazis-holocaust" categories: - "Elon Musk" - "Future Society" - "The Industrialists" tags: - "antisemitism" - "elon musk" - "neo-nazis" - "politics" --- # Elon Musk Appears at Rally Linked to Neo Nazis, Tells Germany to Get Over the Holocaust ![Elon Musk told a rally for Germany's far-right, nationalistic AfD party that Germans should move past the horrors of WWII and the Holocaust.]() *\Image: Angela Weiss / AFP / Sean Gallup via Getty / Futurism\* On Saturday, billionaire Elon Musk made a brief appearance at a rally for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party — a growing, far-right nationalist contingency [boasting ties to neo-Nazism]() and looking to take power in a fast-approaching German election — to urge the crowd to "move beyond" the sins of Germany's not-too-distant genocidal past. "There is too much focus on past guilt, and we need to move beyond that," Musk, appearing to refer to the evils of the Holocaust and the Second World War, told roughly 4,500 rallygoers, [according to ]()*[The Washington Post]().* "Children should not be guilty of the sins of their parents, let alone their great-grandparents." As [*Axios* notes](), this type of rhetoric is commonly employed by neo-Nazis and skinheads when discussing Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. Last week, at a post-inaugural ball for US president Donald Trump, Musk made [what appeared to be *multiple* fascist salutes]() to the crowd; a few days later, he took to X to make [gross Holocaust jokes](). And now, at a nationalist rally amidst a [global shift towards autocracy](), the [antisemitic]() billionaire [reportedly]() slated to have an office in the West Wing is [again urging a nation]() not to learn from the traumas of the 20th Century and instead to forget. As the eternal wisdom goes: if it looks, walks, and quacks like a duck — well, then it probably is a duck. Over the past several months, Musk has frequently espoused his support for the AfD, which counts itself as the first nationalist party to win a regional election in Germany since World War II. He often interacts on X-formerly-Twitter, the social media platform he owns, with party acolytes and leaders, for example agreeing with the bizarre claim made by AfD figurehead [Alice Weidel]() that the Nazis weren't far-right fascists — which they certainly were — but instead far-left communists. (As [*Wired* pointed out at the time](), everything said in that exchange was grotesquely false and not at all rooted in history.) Musk's statements fell just before today's [80th anniversary]() of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp, where Nazis [brutally murdered around 1.1 million people](), primarily Jews. The world's richest man also used his allotted time at the rally to rail against immigration, saying that Germans should be "proud" of their culture and values and not "lose that in some sort of multiculturalism that dilutes everything." This isn't surprising at an AfD rally, which can attribute its rise largely to [anti-immigration sentiment across the West](). Germany's forthcoming election will take place in February. In the weeks ahead, we can likely expect Musk to continue to use his platform to push for a nationalist, AfD victory — and, presumably, to dig his hole deeper in ways we can't even imagine yet. **More on Musk:** [*Trump Gives Elon Musk Access to All Unclassified Data in the US Government*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've reported extensively on the rise of AI as a cultural and business force shaping the media industry, and more broadly how those dynamics are changing how we all consume and share information and relate to one another. I'm also fascinated by public health policy and ethics, the role of emerging tech in politics and governance — and the powerful people and forces at those intersections — climate change, and the environment. My investigation on Sports Illustrated's use of AI-generated authors with fictional biographies won a 2024 Mirror Award for "Best Story on Media Coverage of Artificial Intelligence in Journalism and the Media" from Syracuse University's SI Newhouse School, I contributed to Niemen Lab's 2025 Predictions for Journalism series, and I've discussed my work for Futurism during appearances on NPR, CNN, the BBC, the CBC, and more. I grew up in rural Pennsylvania and attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where I played Division I field hockey for the Minutewomen as a midfielder. Since then, I've lived in New Orleans, Louisiana and Manhattan, New York. I spend my free time running, reading, perusing archival fashion, and searching for the world’s best negroni. I also have a debonair tuxedo cat, Westley, who's named after "The Princess Bride." ### Author social links [Bluesky]()