Call the Gazpacho Police.
Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk sparked a storm-trooping controversy Thursday as the world's richest man tweeted a meme linking Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to Adolph Hitler.
'I Had A Budget'
Musk, who is also the founder of SpaceX, tweeted a photograph of Adolph Hitler with the statement "Stop comparing me to Justin Trudeau. I had a budget."
The billionaire's blitz meme was in response to a tweet from the cryptocurrency news outlet Coindesk which stated that “Canadian authorities have ordered financial institutions not to interact with 34 different crypto addresses tied to the country’s ongoing trucker protests.”
Coindesk reported that officials were investigating cryptocurrency donations supporting the weeks-long protest against Canada’s vaccine mandate.
The truck drivers began their protest last month against international travel restrictions imposed by the Canadian government, which requires all entrants to the country to be vaccinated against Covid-19.
The truckers blocked international bridges and border crossings in several Canadian provinces.
Neither Trudeau's office nor Tesla immediately responded to requests for comment.
Musk, whose mother is Canadian, was born in South Africa and moved to Canada at age 17 to avoid conscription.
Jonathan A. Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, condemned Musk's use of the Hitler image.
“As we’ve said many times before, false comparisons of public leaders to Hitler are hurtful and offensive and only serve to trivialize the history of World War II and the Holocaust," he said in a statement. "Elon Musk’s tweet comparing Prime Minster Trudeau to Hitler has no place in civil discourse. We urge him to pull it down immediately, and apologize.”
The American Jewish Committee also slammed the meme, saying in a statement that "once again, Elon Musk has exercised extremely poor judgment by invoking Hitler to make a point on social media. He must stop this unacceptable behavior."
"Musk may believe posting a meme comparing Justin Trudeau to a genocidal dictator who exterminated millions is an appropriate way to criticize policies he disagrees with," the statement continued. "It is not. It never is. Musk must apologize and find other ways to voice his displeasure."
The electric vehicle maker's attempt at Hitlerian hilarity provoked a variety of responses on Twitter.
"To those who’d like to freak out: the Hitler meme is used tongue-in-cheek here," one person tweeted. "Elon tweeted some meme a few days ago mocking those who use the hitler comparison. This is a joke and is not a serious comparison. Please chill."
"Unfollowed. Not funny." another person responded.
"You are the boldest richest man on the Planet earth," another person said. "You speak what is in your heart. Admire you for this."
'The Adolph Meme is Too Much'
One poster said that "trucker disruptions on the US-Canada border are massively disruptive to the auto industry (but not @Tesla)....so @elonmusk has an incentive to promote these disruptions. But the Adolph meme is too much, and offensive."
This was hardly the first time Musk has goose-stepped into deep doo-doo.
In 2018, for example, Musk called British diver Vernon Unsworth, who was a diver in the Thai cave rescue operation to save a group of stranded boys, a pedophile.
Unsworth had said that the miniature submarine Musk had designed and sent to Thailand to help rescue the boys was a publicity stunt. Musk later apologized to Unsworth and deleted the tweet, but he referred to the diver in a later tweet.
And there was the time he tweeted he was considering "taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured."
The tweet sparked a lawsuit from the Securities and Exchange Commission which resulted in a settlement that required Musk to pay a $20 million fine.
Musk was also asked to step down as the chairman of Tesla's board of directors for three years.
In addition, Musk responded to the Covid-19 lockdown by tweeting "Free America Now" and in November he trolled Senator Bernie Sanders, who had said the extremely wealthy must pay their fair share of taxes, by tweeting "I keep forgetting that you’re still alive.”
And just on Thursday accused the SEC of improperly targeting him and his company with an "endless" and "unrelenting" investigation.
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