This page is part of a resource collection on far right extremism. See also this separate resource page tracking Elon’s DOGE.

Image: Elon Musk’s infamous salute at Donald Trump inauguration.

Elon Musk & Apartheid South Africa: Roots & Connections

Democracy Now! Elon Musk’s Family History in South Africa Reveals Ties to Apartheid & Neo-Nazi Movements.

Chris McGreal:

• How the roots of the ‘PayPal mafia’ extend to apartheid South Africa: Elon Musk grew up with the privileges of a stratified racial order and Peter Thiel lived in a city that venerated Hitler.
• ‘White supremacists in suits and ties’: the rightwing Afrikaner group in Trump’s ear.

Rachel Savage:

• The making of Elon Musk: how did his childhood in apartheid South Africa shape him?
• Trump cuts aid to South Africa over ‘racial discrimination’ against Afrikaners.

Elon Musk’s Nazi Salute (January 20, 2025)

Lauren Aratani: Elon Musk’s daughter says father’s rally gesture was ‘definitely a Nazi salute.’

Katrin Bennhold: What Elon Musk’s Salute Was All About: A gesture associated with the Nazis has a surprising history. But in Germany, there was little doubt about its meaning.

Kate Connolly: ‘The gesture speaks for itself’: Germans respond to Musk’s apparent Nazi salute.

David Gilbert: Neo-Nazis Love the Nazi-Like Salutes Elon Musk Made at Trump’s Inauguration: The far right is celebrating what it views as a clear signal from the X owner and Donald Trump associate, who made the gestures onstage Monday.

Lisa Hagen: They look like Nazi salutes. Here’s why some people think they’re a joke.

SPLC: Elon Musk’s Inaugural Roman Salute Sparks Outrage, Far-Right Praise.

Elon Musk’s Nazi Sympathies

Freddie Clayton: Elon Musk’s call for Germany to ‘move beyond’ Nazi guilt is dangerous, Holocaust memorial chair says.

Kate Conger: Elon Musk Shared, Then Removed a Post Absolving Dictators for Genocide.

Antonio Pequeño IV: Musk Retweets ‘Hitler Didn’t Murder Millions’ Message.

Elon’s Ties with the International Far Right

2025

J Oliver Conroy: How Elon Musk’s X became the global right’s supercharged front page: Musk has now used X as a platform to make aggressive interventions in US politics – and in those of other countries.

David Gilbert: Elon Musk and Far-Right German Leader Agree ‘Hitler Was a Communist’: In a conversation with AfD leader Alice Weidel on X, Musk concurred with her assertion that Adolf Hitler was a communist and pushed disinformation about migrants coming into the US. Chris Michael: Bill Gates calls Elon Musk’s embrace of far-right politicians abroad ‘insane shit.’

NBC: How Elon Musk is boosting far-right politics across the globe: The world’s richest man is trying to sway politics on six continents.

2024

Freddie Clayton: Elon Musk courts Europe’s surging far right: Musk has thrown his support behind far-right politicians in the U.K., Italy and Germany, where the leader of the AfD party has evoked Nazi rhetoric.

The Guardian: Elon Musk and UK politics: interference in plain sight.

Ben Quinn: Elon Musk’s Farage meeting renews reports he could fund Reform UK.

Reuters: Hungary’s Viktor Orban meets Trump, Musk at Mar-a-Lago.

Elon’s Efforts to Elect Donald Trump

CNN: Elon Musk spent more than $290 million on the 2024 election, year-end FEC filings show.

David Corn: Elon Musk’s $100 Million-Plus Gift to Trump: Each day, the world’s richest man is essentially providing Trump millions in free advertising.

Michael Scherer & Josh Dawsey: Inside the Republican false-flag effort to turn off Kamala Harris voters: A multipronged dark money effort by advisers to Elon Musk targeted liberals, Jews, Muslims and Black voters with ads that were not quite what they seemed.

Josh Gerstein: Judge accelerates, relocates hearing on suit over Elon Musk’s $1 million-a-day giveaway: The moves come after the Philadelphia district attorney reported receiving threats from Musk’s followers.

Jake Lahut:

• Workers Say They Were Tricked and Threatened as Part of Elon Musk’s Get-Out-the-Vote Effort:America PAC door knockers were flown to Michigan, driven in the back of a U-Haul, and told they’d have to pay hotel bills unless they met unrealistic quotas.
• Elon Musk’s America PAC Hit With Class Action Lawsuit.
• Canvassers for Elon Musk’s America PAC Were Fired and Stranded in Michigan After Speaking Out: A dozen Black canvassers were tricked, threatened, and driven in seatless U-Haul vans. They were fired after WIRED reported on their plight—some without full pay or a way back home.

Elon Musk: Turning X Into a Far Right Disinformation Platform

2025

January 1.   Cad Loder (BlueSky thread.) Elon Musk is a good example of how terrible people become increasingly radicalized into the far right simply because the far right is a community that accepts cruel, terrible people.

January 2.   Molly White: Elon Musk and the right’s war on Wikipedia: The world’s richest man has joined a growing chorus of right-wing voices attacking Wikipedia as part of an intensifying campaign against free and open access information.

January 3.   David Gilbert: Elon Musk Is Posting Nonstop Falsehoods About ‘Grooming Gangs’: Musk’s posts, which have racked up hundreds of millions of views on X, are his latest effort at inserting himself into UK politics.

January 9.   David Gilbert: MAGA Is Blaming DEI for the California Wildfires: Rather than months without rain or the effects of climate change, figures like Elon Musk and Donald Trump Jr. are pointing to a familiar scapegoat as entire neighborhoods burn.

January 10.   The Washington Post: As Los Angeles burns, Elon Musk stokes partisan outrage: Musk’s use of X to amplify far-right narratives about the disaster underscores how the close adviser to Trump may use his unprecedented online reach to bolster the incoming administration.

February 13.   David Gilbert: DOGE’s Website Is Just One Big X Ad: The source code for the new Department of Government Efficiency’s “official US government website” points to X as its primary source of authority, while sharing links to the site sends users to x.com.

March 22.  Eliza Gkritsi: Musk’s X suspends opposition accounts in Turkey amid civil unrest.

March 23.   Renée DiResta: Elon Musk’s Soap Operas for Conspiracy Buffs: Online fantasies are now an excuse to take apart the government.

March 28.   Charlie Warzel: The Gleeful Cruelty of the White House X Account: Welcome to the 4chan administration.

April 3.   Adam Satariano: E.U. Prepares Major Penalties Against Elon Musk’s X.

April 11.   Zoë Schiffer: The Social Security Administration Is Gutting Regional Staff and Shifting All Public Communications to X.

2024

AP News: Musk helped kill a congressional spending bill. But much of what he spread was misinformation.

Robert Booth & Jessica Elgot: MPs to summon Elon Musk to testify about X’s role in UK summer riots.

Carole Cadwalladr: Inciting rioters in Britain was a test run for Elon Musk. Just see what he plans for America.

Will Carless: Study found hate speech in tweets. So Musk tried to punish the researchers, judge says.

Will Carless & Jessica Guynn: Riots in the UK spurred by racist posts on X. Experts warn of a repeat in the US.

CNN: Election officials are outmatched by Elon Musk’s misinformation machine.

Mari Cohen & Alex Kane: Top Executive Leaves ADL Over CEO’s Praise of Elon Musk: Yaël Eisenstat’s departure is the most prominent instance of post-October 7th dissent within the organization.

Arianna Coghill & Garrison Hayes: Elon Musk Keeps Spreading a Very Specific Kind of Racism: He is the “patient zero for this sort of stuff right now.”

Kevin Collier: Musk’s election falsehoods travel hundreds of times further on X than fact-checks from officials.

Kate Conger & Jim Rutenberg: Elon Musk Is Spreading Election Misinformation, but X’s Fact Checkers Are Long Gone: Civil rights lawyers and Democrats are sounding alarms about Mr. Musk’s claims about voting. The Biden campaign called his posts “profoundly irresponsible.”

Andrew Couts: Elon Musk Is a National Security Risk:Musk’s now-deleted post questioning why no one has attempted to assassinate Joe Biden and Kamala Harris renews concerns over his work for the US government—and potential to inspire extremist violence.

Paresh Dave: Inside Two Years of Turmoil at Big Tech’s Anti-Terrorism Group:X has left the board of GIFCT, an organization through which tech companies exchange information to keep violent content off the web. It’s the latest in a series of episodes driving tension within the ranks.

Renée DiResta: Rumors on X Are Becoming the Right’s New Reality.

Vittoria Elliott: X’s First Transparency Report Since Elon Musk’s Takeover Is Finally Here:In the first half of 2024, the report says, X received nearly 67 million reports of hateful conduct, and took action on more than 2,000 accounts.

David Gilbert:

• Elon Musk’s X Is Suspending Accounts That Reveal a Neo-Nazi Cartoonist’s Alleged Identity: Researchers and journalists have been blocked on X from sharing the alleged identity of the neo-Nazi cartoonist Stonetoss.
• Donald Trump Doesn’t Need X—but Elon Musk Desperately Needs Him Back.
• Trump’s New Silicon Valley Supporters Really Want You to Forget He Called Nazis ‘Fine People’:Over the past few weeks, figures like Elon Musk have tried to minimize comments Donald Trump made about the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville.

David Gilbert & Isabel Fraser: X Is Boosting the Far Right’s UK Riots as Telegram Scrambles for Control: Far-right protesters are trying to share violent rhetoric on social media. For the first time, Telegram is blocking them—while X is giving them a platform.

Pema Levy: Elon Musk Is Directing All X Litigation Toward His Favorite Judge: The Texas-based GOP-appointee has a financial stake in Musk’s car company.

Anna Merlan: Can Elon Musk Really Sue People for Not Wanting to Be Seen With Him? A lawsuit claims that corporate advertisers avoided X as part of a vast left-wing conspiracy.

Brianna Morris-Grant: Misinformation posted to Twitter comes from ‘superspreader’ accounts, say researchers, amid warnings for future of content moderation on X.

Sebastian Murdock: Elon Musk Says He’ll Reinstate Twitter Account Of Hitler-Loving White Supremacist.

Tom Phillips: Bolsonaro supporters hit streets of Rio and hail new hero Elon Musk: Owner of X has used social media platform to bash judge in charge of investigations into former president. Hafiz Rashid: Elon Musk Admits X Is Making It Harder for People to Read News: The world’s richest man has finally admitted he’s essentially censoring news articles on X.

Jonathan Stempel: Musk’s X Corp loses lawsuit against hate speech watchdog.

The Washington Post: Elon Musk’s misleading election claims reach millions and alarm election officials: The X billionaire’s false posts about noncitizen voting spur officials to fact-check him, lead to requests to purge voter rolls, and add to worries about threats, election officials say.

Jason Wilson: Revealed: US university lecturer behind far-right Twitter account and publishing house. Guardian investigation identifies Jonathan Keeperman, a former lecturer at the University of California, Irvine, as ‘Lomez’.

2023

BBC: IBM suspends ads on X after they appeared next to Nazi posts.

CNN: Twitter removes transgender protections from hateful conduct policy.

Drew Harwell: New video undercuts claim Twitter censored pro-Trump views before Jan. 6: In the internal video call from Jan. 5, 2021, workers were told not to take tougher action against a growing wave of tweets they feared were veiled incitements to violence.

Tess Owen:

• Racist Premium X Users Exploiting Israel-Hamas War to Push Antisemitism, Islamophobia.
• At Leading Anti-Hate Group, Boss’s Embrace of Elon Musk Raises Tensions: Some staff at the Anti-Defamation League are wondering why, when antisemitism is on the rise, their CEO is treating the X owner with kid gloves.

The Washington Post:

• Antisemitism was rising online. Then Elon Musk’s X supercharged it.
• The Washington Post: Elon Musk’s Twitter pushes hate speech, extremist content into ‘For You’ pages: A Washington Post analysis found that accounts following dozens of Twitter handles pushing hate speech were subjected to an algorithmic echo chamber,in which Twitter fed additional hateful and racist content to users.

2022

Andy Cao, Jason M. Lindo & Jiee Zhong: Can Social Media Rhetoric Incite Hate Incidents? Evidence from Trump’s “Chinese Virus” Tweets.

Media Matters for America: After Twitter lifted Libs of TikTok’s suspension, the viral anti-LGBTQ account immediately returned to targeting educators and a children’s hospital.

Cynthia Miller-Idriss: Elon Musk’s Twitter is a welcoming home for Trump-disillusioned QAnon.