Sami Steigmann, a Holocaust survivor who has spoken to thousands of students over the years, believes that media reports accusing the billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk of performing a Nazi salute at an inauguration celebration mischaracterize the facts.
“It was not a Nazi salute,” Steigmann told JNS. “Give me a break. He suddenly became a Nazi? No.”
“He just raised his hand, and he was very excited that Trump has won the presidency and that he had a part in helping him,” Steigmann, 85, who lives in Manhattan, told JNS. “It’s not a big deal. But there are people that want to make it into a big deal. He is not an antisemite.”
The accusations are part of the political game, according to Steigmann.
“He is too close to Trump, and everyone who is close to him can be a target,” Steigmann said. “Elon Musk did something that nobody thought could be done.”
Musk helped get Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, and Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder of Facebook, to attend Trump’s inauguration.
“Nobody would have thought that could happen,” Steigmann said. “People are jealous of success, and they have been against him since he bought Twitter and threw his support behind Trump.”
Steigmann added that MSNBC was wrong to compare the rally that then-presidential candidate Donald Trump held at Madison Square Garden to the Nazi rally that took place at the venue in 1939.
“The media makes money from confrontation. It was stupid and idiotic to call that rally a Nazi rally,” he said. “They will use every opportunity to say how terrible Musk is, and they will try to go to extremes.”
‘They are looking for attention’
Told that the Anti-Defamation League is facing backlash for posting that Musk’s gesture was not antisemitic, Steigmann was not surprised.
“The ADL is correct it was not a Nazi salute,” he said. “But many in the media are furious that Trump won, and this is a way to attack him—by attacking Musk.”
Steigmann said white supremacists posting that Musk made a Nazi salute don’t have much meaning in the grander scheme of things. “They are looking for attention in any way possible,” he said.
Steigmann thinks that the media should focus on real antisemitism from Hamas and Iran, among other places.
Steigmann’s recent presentations to schools have included discussions about the attacks of Oct. 7. He told JNS that he has great concerns about the hostage deal and did not want so many murderers to be released, setting a bad precedent, but he understands that words have to have meaning.
“To stop Hezbollah and Iran from attacking, Biden said ‘don’t,’” Steigmann said. “We saw those words had no meaning and they did not care, and Hezbollah and Iran still attacked.”
“So when Trump said there would be hell to pay if hostages were not returned, he had to show that his words had meaning,” he said. Steigmann added that he thinks that Trump promised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that “if Hamas doesn’t follow through, he has a free hand against the terrorists.”
