Elon Musk Pressured Reddit CEO During Moderator Revolt Over Nazi-Style Salute: Report

Moderators at more than 100 Reddit communities banned links to X after Elon Musk’s infamous Nazi-style salutes back in January, a rather understandable reaction to seeing public displays of violent fascist ideology. The billionaire oligarch very publicly complained about Reddit in the middle of the controversy, but we now learn that Musk wasn’t just whining on X. The Tesla CEO was also privately pressuring the CEO of Reddit to help him out by apparently silencing critics of the Trump regime, according to a new report from The Verge.

Musk was exchanging text messages with Reddit CEO Steve Huffman before the platform banned r/WhitePeopleofTwitter for 72 hours, according to The Verge which cites “people familiar with the matter.” The subreddit was ostensibly banned over violent threats against members of DOGE, the entity that’s currently dismantling the U.S. government. News of DOGE’s theft of sensitive personal information led to an outcry on r/WhitePeopleofTwitter, some of which included violent language. But the entire subreddit was banned rather than being moderated.

The exact words exchanged between Musk and Huffman haven’t been revealed, but The Verge reports that moderators from several subreddits learned of communication between the two men and called Musk a “giant baby.” Musk has a long history of banning links out to domains he doesn’t likebut when it’s done to him he really throws a fit.

One Reddit moderator in the discussion about communication between Musk and Huffman wrote, “I don’t have any problem with removing rule-breaking content (and taking the respective admin action on said accounts), but I find it a bit problematic that he’s able to exert influence on both public and private institutions,” according to The Verge.

X did not respond to questions emailed Thursday but a spokesperson for Reddit sent a general statement about responding to “policy violations” without directly addressing the central question of whether Musk and Huffman were communicating at the time.

“We take any report of Reddit policy violations seriously, whether on Reddit directly or through other public or private means,” the statement reads. “We will evaluate content reported to us and action if violating.”

The Reddit communities participating in the ban on X links included a wide assortment of typically apolitical subreddits, including everything from r/NFL to r/Nintendo. The moderators at the subreddit r/Military explained the reason for the link ban very succinctlywith “Fuck that guy.” The kind of response you’d expect when someone appears to make a Nazi salute. Musk didn’t immediately deny he had made two Nazi salutes at an event for President Donald Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, instead opting to double down with jokes about Nazis.

“Don’t say Hess to Nazi accusations! Some people will Goebbels anything down!” Musk wrote on Jan. 23. “Stop Gőring your enemies! His pronouns would’ve been He/Himmler! Bet you did nazi that coming.”

A Tesla employee who complained about the jokes was reportedly fired, according to the New York Times. Musk only explicitly denied he was doing a Nazi salute much later during an interview with right-wing conspiracy theorist Joe Rogan. But most people seem to have understood what Musk was doing at the time. Even literal Nazis on X celebrated Musk’s salutes, which were replicated by several MAGA-friendly figures in the weeks after Musk’s gesture.

Calvin Robinson, a priest in Michigan, made the salute at a “pro-life” event about a week later, actor Eduardo Verástegui made the salute at CPAC, and far-right podcaster and former advisor to President Trump, Steve Bannon, made the salute at CPAC. Podcaster Andrew Tatewho was recently allowed to come to the U.S. despite facing sex trafficking charges in Romania, also did the salute publicly.

The U.S. is rapidly descending into the kind of fascism most Americans have only read about in history books. But American exceptionalism has left many people with the impression that such a thing can’t really happen here. Meanwhile, international students are getting abducted by secret police off the streets and thrown into ICE detention facilities thousands of miles away. Video of Turkish PhD student Rumeysa Ozturk at Tufts University went viral this week for precisely that.

Elon Musk has enormous sway in the U.S., as not just the richest person in the world but as an oligarch who’s been given free rein to shape the federal government however he likes. But as Musk sets out to destroy American government, it can sometimes be easy to forget how much sway he has in the world of tech, including with companies he doesn’t even own. Musk clearly has the CEO of Reddit on speed-dial. And his influence is only going to grow as he accumulates more power with Trump’s gang of thugs.