Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk shared a meme comparing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler on Thursday.
Mr Musk shared an image of the former German dictator overlaid with text that read, “stop comparing me to Justin Trudeau. I had a budget”.
The image was shared by the CEO in response to an article from cryptocurrency news site CoinDesk detailing Mr Trudeau’s order sanctioning crypto wallets associated with the trucker protests that have ensnared Canada’s economy as well as the capital city of Ottawa. It was deleted by Mr Musk by mid-afternoon on Thursday.
Mr Trudeau’s decision to utilise emergency powers to end the trucker protests in Ottawa have been criticised by US conservatives, who have cheered on the anti-vaccine protests from afar and openly encouraged such demonstrations across the US.
Under the powers enacted by Mr Trudeau, the government will be able to take further steps to remove the truckers and their vehicles including by conscripting tow-truck drivers to tow the trucks off city streets.
Mr Musk is one of many right-leaning figures who have cheered on the trucker protest, and he previously tweeted “Canadian truckers rule!” in the early days of the demonstrations.
Those demonstrations have locked up traffic across Canada’s capital for weeks, and polling has indicated for days that a wide majority of Ottawans want the truckers to leave.
The tweet from Mr Musk is also nowhere close to his first controversial use of the platform. He previously came under SEC investigation after tweeting plans for a potential buyout of his company, and was forced to pay $20 million as a result.
His latest effort to troll his political foes on Twitter came under fire from Jewish groups who criticised his post as clearly minimising the evils of Adolf Hitler and Nazism.
“[Elon Musk] has exercised extremely poor judgment by invoking Hitler to make a point on social media. Comparing @CanadianPM Justin Trudeau to a genocidal dictator who murdered millions is not an appropriate way to criticise policies. He must apologise immediately,” said the American Jewish Committee in a statement.
He has long opposed most public health mandates aimed at curbing the deadly Covid-19 pandemic, which has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans over the past two years.
In 2020, he referred to stay-at-home orders as “fascist” and referred to them as politicians supposedly “forcibly imprisoning people in their homes against all their constitutional rights”.
