When Elon Musk gave two Nazi-style salutes the day President Donald Trump was inaugurated in January, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) came to the billionaire’s defense, saying it was just an “awkward gesture.” But Musk clearly doesn’t have the same kind of affection for the ADL.
“The ADL hates Christians, therefore it is is a hate group,” Musk wrote in a tweet Sunday.
The ADL hates Christians, therefore it is is a hate group — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 28, 2025
The billionaire Tesla CEO was responding to a tweet from an account called @iamyesyouareno, which has about half a million followers. The pseudonymous account wrote, “The ADL considers Christianity a hateful terrorist extremist belief. You don’t hate the ADL enough.”
Christian Identity (notice the capitalization of the I in Identity) is an extremist ideology that believes Jews are the Satanic offspring of the biblical Eve and the Serpent from the Garden of Eden. All of that is explained in the ADL’s page for Christian Identity.
It’s not clear if Musk understands the difference between Christian Identity as a specific extremist ideology and small-i Christian identity. The far-right billionaire often operates in bad faith while discussing politics on X, the platform he owns, but he also simply isn’t that smart when it comes to many topics.
Reached for comment over email, the ADL pointed Gizmodo to a statement from the ADL on the organization’s X account explaining the Christian Identity ideology. Replies for that tweet have been turned off, perhaps because X has itself become an extremist platform filled with anti-semitic hate since Musk bought the site in late 2022.
The ADL also sent Gizmodo a link to a tweet from CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, who wrote that the idea ADL is anti-Christian is “offensive and wrong.”
“Many of our staff members are Christian. Many of our supporters are Christian,” Greenblatt tweeted. “We are blessed to work with many Christian brothers and sisters in the shared fight against antisemitism and all forms of hate. In contrast, the Christian Identity movement is an antisemitic, racist, and unambiguously poisonous ideology. Its values bear no resemblance to those of any mainstream Christian denomination.”
Replies to Greenblatt’s tweets have also been turned off, and the ADL didn’t specifically address Elon Musk in its tweets.
Other high-profile accounts also commented on the ADL’s page about Christian Identity recently, including Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Republican from Florida. Luna accused the ADL of “intentionally creating a targeted hate campaign against Christians.”
Conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, who has taken credit for getting several people fired from the Trump administration for supposedly being disloyal, replied to Musk that the ADL should be “designated as a domestic terror org.”
Musk made several changes after he bought Twitter and changed the name to X, including a big shift in what kind of content gets moderated. The CEO has welcomed back white supremacists who had previously been banned from Twitter, including Nick Fuentes, who’s been able to get a lot more attention ever since he was allowed to again have a mainstream platform. Fuentes has a long history of praising Adolf Hitler and spreading anti-semitic hate.
The group X Out the Hate has previously called out Musk’s extremism, calling on Apple and Google to drop X from its services after the CEO’s two Nazi-style salutes.
“From the Nazi salute to his Holocaust ‘jokes’ to his support of the extremist AfD party in Germany, Musk’s antisemitism has moved to the international stage,” X Out the Hate wrote in February. “Almost daily, he spreads heinous conspiracy theories like the Great Replacement conspiracy theory, promotes neo-Nazis, and agrees with tweets claiming Jews push hate against white people.”
Musk has previously defended his salutes as something he did to express the idea that he was sending out love to the audience. And the ADL defended Musk, insisting that the world didn’t just witness what seemed obvious to millions of people.
“It seems that @elonmusk made an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute, but again, we appreciate that people are on edge,” the ADL tweeted on Jan. 20. “In this moment, all sides should give one another a bit of grace, perhaps even the benefit of the doubt, and take a breath. This is a new beginning. Let’s hope for healing and work toward unity in the months and years ahead.”
Musk replied at the time with a crying-laughing emoji while thanking the organization.
Thanks guys 😂 — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 21, 2025
Musk also stirred controversy in 2023 when he endorsed a tweet that said Jewish communities had been pushing “hatred against whites.” Musk also attacked the ADL during that tirade, writing, “The ADL unjustly attacks the majority of the West, despite the majority of the West supporting the Jewish people and Israel,” Musk wrote at the time.
The billionaire has also threatened to sue the ADL for scaring advertisers away from X. And more recently, he became upset that Turning Point USA, the organization founded by the late Charlie Kirk, is listed on the ADL website as an extremist group. “The ADL needs to change this now,” Musk tweeted on Sept. 27.
X didn’t respond to an email on Monday seeking comment about Musk’s tweet calling the ADL a hate group. Gizmodo will update this article when we hear back.