The South African-born billionaire has sparked growing international outrage over his embrace of extremism, including an incident in which he appeared to give a Nazi salute in front of a crowd in Washington on Monday.
Students protesting Elon Musk’s extremism “hanged” him in effigy in Milan’s Piazzale Loreto, hanging a fake body upside down in an imitation of the hanging of Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini on this same place in 1945.
As Italian agency ANSA reports, the protesters belong to a left-wing collective known as Cambiare Rotta, or Change of Course.
The group, which identifies as communist, posted an image of the effigy on social media, writing: “There’s always room in Piazzale Loreto, Elon.”
Mr. Musk, who has publicly adopted far-right political positions since buying Twitter and renaming it X, has recently sparked a new wave of outrage over his statements and behavior.
After having supported the far-right Alternative for Germany party (AfD) in the German elections and called for the release of the British anti-Muslim activist and anti-immigration Tommy RobinsonMr. Musk was convicted this week of making what appeared to be multiple Nazi salutes to a crowd in Washington.
Some said he simply waved his arm in a fit of uncontrolled exuberance.
The Anti-Defamation League, an international NGO known for its campaigns against anti-Semitism, said in a statement Monday that Mr. Musk had made an “awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute.”
On his first day in office, Donald Trump pardoned some 1,500 people who violently attacked the Capitol in January 2021 in an attempt to overturn Joe Biden’s electoral victory.
Among those pardoned were leaders of the Proud Boys, an extremist gang, who had been convicted of seditious conspiracy for their role in the riot.
The fact that the group marched in Washington after four years of relative withdrawal from the public sphere was seen as a sign that American extremists, including those with strong international networks, have been significantly emboldened by the political dynamics in the United States. -United – and by Musk’s growing embrace of their rhetoric, online and otherwise.
Additional sources • adaptation: Serge Duchêne
