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Elon Musk wants to criminalise calling people Nazis for some reason

In response to America’s latest mass-shooting event, Elon Musk has argued it should be criminal to describe “non-violent” people as Nazis:


In response, people have noted that Musk himself would be the most notable beneficiary of this law:


Be a smartie

We should highlight that Musk claims he did not in fact do a Nazi salute. According to him, he was doing a gesture which was supposed to translate as ‘my heart goes out to you’. As others have noted, however, Musk’s gesture had the Aryan rigidity of a Nazi salute:

On the topic of Musk’s links to far-right ideology, people have drawn attention to his support for far-right parties like Germany’s AFD (not to mention Britain’s Tommy Robinson):


Musk also engages with and follows blatantly far-right accounts on his toilet of a website:

A notable issue with Musk’s intervention is that he’s previously described himself as a free speech absolutist. This ‘absolutism’ obviously isn’t compatible with arresting people because they call him names, is it?


Oh, and then there’s this:


Another issue is that many have accused Musk of inciting violence himself:

Musk specified that he was talking about “non violent” individuals in his tweet, and yet the inherent point he’s making is that words can be violence. So basically, what he seems to be saying is that the state should step in when someone hurts his feelings, but his own pronouncements should be free from scrutiny.

Criminal behaviour

To be fair to Elon Musk, if the allegations about his drug use are true, it makes sense that he would contradict himself so often. This sort of idle tweeting isn’t nothing, though. Musk and his billionaire buddies are all linked in to the Trump administration which has sought to crack down on civil liberties and freedom of speech. These same billionaires are also making moves in the UK:

We live in a world in which today’s inane tweets are tomorrow’s policies. In that sense, calling Musk a ‘fascist’ is wrong, because it fails to convey just how much power he has to shape the world around him.

Featured image via PBS

By Willem Moore

This post was originally published on Canary.