ANAS Sarwar has refused to call out Elon Musk after the Twitter/X owner appeared to do a “Heil Hitler” salute at Donald Trump’s inauguration.
Number 10 claimed to have not seen the gesture the multibillionaire gave on stage at the Capitol One Arena in Washington DC earlier this week.
The National grilled the Scottish Labour leader about the actions of Musk while he was campaigning in Kirkintilloch on Wednesday, but Sarwar also opted not to condemn the entrepreneur, insisting he did not want to give him attention.
Asked whether he wanted to make any comment on Musk’s gesture, Sarwar said: “I think for lots of big personalities that believe in divisive politics and rhetoric, they would love for politicians and governments to talk about them, comment on them and fixate on them.
“I’m not going to do that. What I’m going to do is focus on the issues people care about and what the issues are that are driving people towards divisive politics and individuals.
“The issues that are driving people towards that are they don’t feel the economy works for them, how do we fix that? They don’t think our housing market is fair, how do we fix that? They don’t believe public services work for them, how do we fix that?”
Pressed further on whether Keir Starmer was running scared of Musk, Sarwar added: “Those personalities want us to talk about them.
“What I will say is any promotion of the far-right, any normalisation of the far-right, I’m utterly opposed to but I’m not going to give those individuals that crave attention the opportunity they want.”
"I just want to say thank you for making it happen. Thank you."
The SpaceX chief went on to say that he was excited about the future, telling the crowd he was inspired by the prospect of landing American astronauts on Mars.
Responding to the accusations, Musk wrote on X: “Frankly, they need better dirty tricks. The 'everyone is Hitler' attack is sooo tired."
The Jerusalem Post, an English-language Israeli paper, reported that the Tesla owner had appeared to "Sieg Heil at [the] Trump inauguration".
The paper later suggested it was "a Heil Hitler salute".
The Times of Israel, another large Israeli outlet, reported: "Elon Musk appears to perform fascist salute at inauguration event."
Musk also heaped praise on Trump throughout the rally, repeating Trump’s promise of a coming “golden age” for the country.
During the inauguration, Musk was seated in a row that included other tech giants, including Google chief executive Sundar Pichai and Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg.
Musk been made head of Trump’s newly-created Department for Government Efficiency (DOGE).
The advisory group is not strictly part of the government – but is set to recommend major cuts to budgets and bureaucracy.
Following his appointment, Musk set it a target of $2tn (£1.62tn) – roughly the same size as the US deficit.
