The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, was slammed by his critics this week for posting on X: “Hitler was a socialist, therefore all socialists are Hitler.”
When an X user asked Grok if Hitler was a socialist, the AI app reported: “No. The Nazi Party’s name included ‘National Socialist’ for propaganda appeal to workers, but Hitler explicitly rejected Marxist socialism. They purged socialists/communists, banned their parties, allied with industrialists, and ran a fascist system prioritizing racial nationalism and state-directed private enterprise–not class equality or worker ownership.”
Elon Musk called Hitler a socialist then Grok correctly debunks him by pointing out Hitler rejected Marxism and ran a fascist system that prioritized nationalism and private enterprise. Grok then explains socialism is class equality and worker ownership!
Never deleting this app. pic.twitter.com/FJr1H3o9fk
— Power to the People ☭
(@ProudSocialist) May 8, 2026
The influential X account ‘Power to the People’ (which describes itself as an “independent socialist”) replied: “Elon Musk called Hitler a socialist then Grok correctly debunks him by pointing out Hitler rejected Marxism and ran a fascist system that prioritized nationalism and private enterprise. Grok then explains socialism is class equality and worker ownership! Never deleting this app.”
Renowned computer scientist Yann LeCun, former Chief AI Scientist at Meta Platforms, replied: “‘Hitler was a socialist’ is about as accurate as ‘Trump is pro democracy’.”
MAGA-aligned X users who defended Musk included U.S. Senator Mike Lee (R-UT), who wrote: “Fascism and Naziism [sic] aren’t the opposite of socialism, as the modern left would have you believe They *are* socialism.”
When the influential X account ‘MAGA Voice’ replied to Musk’s comment by writing “Elon Musk is now playing by their rules AOC is a socialist, therefore she is worse than ___”, Musk replied, “Hitler.”
Hitler
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 8, 2026
Some critics of Musk are resharing a June 2018 tweet of his which read: “By the way, I am actually a socialist. Just not the kind that shifts resources from most productive to least productive, pretending to do good, which actually [causes] harm. True socialism seeks greatest good for all.”
Is that why you labeled yourself as a socialist? pic.twitter.com/hczRQGFjZp
— Micah Erfan (@micah_erfan) May 9, 2026
