“Heil Tesla”: Elon Musk's Nazi salute projected onto his car brand's factory to denounce his links with the AfD

This Wednesday, January 22, 2024, images were projected onto a Tesla factory in Berlin, denouncing Elon Musk's gesture during the 39;inauguration of Donald Trump.

German activists claimed on Thursday to have projected Elon Musk's controversial salute onto his Tesla factory near Berlin to denounce the gesture interpreted by some as a Nazi salute.

“Buy a Tesla, support fascism!”

“We want to organize the destruction of Elon Musk in an artistic way”, Philipp Ruch, a leader of the collective “Center for Political Beauty” (ZPS), told AFP.

On the X network, owned by Elon Musk, the activist group published a nighttime photo of the billionaire's German factory in Grünheide near Berlin on Wednesday evening, on the facade of which the controversial gesture is projected in very large format.

The projection also shows the word “Heil” next to the illuminated sign of the electric car factory, so as to form the expression “Heil Tesla”, in reference to the salute Hitlerian.

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“Buy a Tesla, support fascism!”, the collective launched on Thursday in another message which shows a video of the projection on the factory. The case has been transmitted to the public prosecutor's office, the local police told AFP.

Musk and the AfD

According to the organizers, the action lasted an hour, and also included projections of Alice Weidel, the far-right AfD party's candidate for chancellor.

At a rally in support of Donald Trump on Monday night, the world's richest man twice extended his right arm in a salute. Democratic lawmakers and historians have seen it as a fascist or Nazi salute, while others have interpreted it as a clumsy gesture.

For several weeks, Elon Musk has been regularly interfering in the campaign for the German legislative elections on February 23, in order to praise the AfD. He also called Social Democratic Chancellor Olaf Scholz “mad” and “an incompetent imbecile” and President Frank-Walter Steinmeier “a tyrant”.

Polls put the AfD in second place with at least 20% of the vote, behind the conservatives.

Accustomed to satirical actions, the ZPS had created in 2017 a miniature replica of the Berlin Holocaust memorial, right in front of the house of a leader of AfD.

Inaugurated in 2022, the Grünheide plant is the only “gigafactory” European of the electric vehicle manufacturer. Tesla did not respond to requests from AFP.