Stephen Fry takes brutal swipe at Elon Musk after Nazi-style salute scandal
The actor, 67, added that he wants to ‘destroy’ social media and accused X of ‘polluting’ children’s minds
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Musk, 53, sparked global outrage when he put his hand on his chest before extending his arm into the air after giving a speech at Washington DC's Capital One Arena last week.
He made the gesture twice in a move that some critics likened to the fascist salute used by Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.
Amid the controversy, Fry repeated a joke he’d been told comparing Tesla founder Musk to the Nazis.
“I heard a very good joke yesterday,” the QI host, 67, told Stig Abell on Times Radio on Thursday.
“Someone said, ‘Musk is not a Nazi... Nazis made really good cars,’” he went on, before bursting out laughing.
Musk was accused of making a Nazi-style salute at Trump’s inauguration
AFP via Getty Images
Abell joked, “Don't put that on Twitter, he'll find you Stephen!” and the actor replied: “Oh, my God. My God, he will.”
Musk denied that he had done a Nazi-style salute after the online criticism earlier this month.
The richest man in the world wrote on X: “Frankly, they need better dirty tricks. The 'everyone is Hitler' attack is sooo tired.”
The Canadian singer said she was “happy to denounce Nazism,” before adding: “I am not him. I will not make a statement every time he does something. I can only send love back into a world that is hurting.”
Elsewhere in his interview, Fry said he wanted to “destroy” social media, saying it has “polluted” our culture and children’s minds.
Fry made a joke comparing Musk to the Nazis during an interview(Matt Crossick/PA)
PA Archive
“I always hated, absolutely hated Facebook, never, never trusted or liked it at all. But Twitter, I just thought, wow, it's wonderful. It's like a beautiful swimming hole, [a] beautiful river where you can all swim."
The actor said the “beautiful swimming hole” where Twitter users had “all made friends with each other” suddenly saw “turds floating on the surface”.
Fry hit out at Musk’s “free speech” argument, which has seen hate speech rise on the social media platform.
The director insisted some guidelines need to be put into place to “weed” out hateful posts.
“Is a gardener an enemy of free growth because they do a bit of weeding?” he asked.
“That's all I'm saying. We need to weed. We need to make the growth strong and healthy so that everybody can enjoy the garden because it's otherwise a mess.”