Elon Musk sparks fury after retweeting claim Hitler, Stalin and Mao 'didn't murder millions'

Tesla CEO Elon Musk sparked controversy after he shared a tweet on his social media platform X, which suggesting that Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Zedong weren't to blame for the deaths of millions, but rather public sector workers were at fault.

The tweet was reposted by Musk this Wednesday. The reshare quickly drew intense criticism, particularly from union representatives.

"America's public service workers - our nurses, teachers, firefighters, librarians - chose making our communities safe, healthy and strong over getting rich," Lee Saunders, the union president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees of the AFL-CIO, said in a scorching rebuttal.

"Elon Musk and the billionaires in this administration have no idea what real people go through every day," he continued. "That's why he's so willing to take a chainsaw to people's jobs, Medicaid, Social Security and Medicare."

"I think you would find the world a much harder place to live in without public sector workers," a second individual said. "Not sure the benefit of disparaging them like this."

Musk has encountered criticism before over his comments about Nazis. Earlier in the month, during a guest spot on Joe Rogan's podcast, he quipped: "I did not see it coming." The entrepreneur, aged 53, played on the words "not" and "see" to evoke the notorious group. The wisecrack emerged while Musk was talking on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, which was published on Friday, Feb. 28.

Musk also suggested that "people will Goebbels anything down," alluding to Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi regime's chief propagandist.

"Don't say Hess to Nazi accusations," he posted on X. "Some people will Goebbels anything down!" He further provocatively wrote, "Stop Gőring your enemies. His pronouns would've been He/Himmler!" He wrapped up the inflammatory post with "Bet you did nazi that coming."

The post highlighted several notorious figures from the Nazi Party, namely Rudolf Walter Richard Hess, known as a Nazi sympathizer; propagandist Joseph Goebbels; political ally Hermann Wilhelm Göring; and prominent Nazi Heinrich Luitpold Himmler.