Fact Check: Musk reposted post that said, 'Stalin, Mao and Hitler didn't murder millions of people' (2025)

Claim:

U.S. President Donald Trump's adviser, Elon Musk, reposted another user's post on X in March 2025, showing a screenshot reading, "Stalin, Mao and Hitler didn’t murder millions of people. Their public sector workers did."

Rating:

In mid-March 2025, an X user posted (archived) that U.S. President Donald Trump's adviser, Elon Musk, "amplified" another user's post that displayed an image reading, "Stalin, Mao and Hitler didn't murder millions of people. Their public sector workers did." Readers also emailed Snopes to ask if Musk truly reposted the post.

A review of Musk's X activity found that on March 13, 2025, he truly reposted the thought saying that Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, Communist China's founding leader Mao Zedong and German dictator and Nazi leader Adolf Hitler didn't murder millions of people, and that "public sector workers did." In other words, the repost genuinely existed, and no one doctored the screenshot with any image-editing tools.

Specifically, Musk used the repost function on X, previously known as a retweet in past years on Twitter, to share another user's post. That other user's post featured a screenshot of a different person's post (archived) about Stalin, Mao and Hitler, tweeted years before on Jan. 30, 2019.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment, including a question asking for the Trump administration's stance about the thought expressed in the post.

One popular Facebook page featured a post (archived) with over 100,000 engagements claiming Musk deleted his repost. However, as of publication time, Musk's repost still appeared on his account.

The Indeed job search website defined present-day public sector workers as people employed at federal, state and municipal levels who generally receive government funding. That's similar to the funding Trump said he tasked Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency to find and eliminate — dubbed by DOGE as "waste, fraud and abuse." Examples of modern public sector employees include police and fire officials, other emergency-service workers, teachers, health care workers and military service people.

Stalin, Zedong and Hitler

Britannica numbered victims of Stalin's reign in the tens of millions. Stanford Report similarly published, "Stalin had nearly a million of his own citizens executed, beginning in the 1930s. Millions more fell victim to forced labor, deportation, famine, massacres and detention and interrogation by Stalin's henchmen." BBC and International Business Times reported further details.

In 1994, The Washington Post published of Zedong, "While most scholars are reluctant to estimate a total number of 'unnatural deaths' in China under Mao, evidence shows he was in some way responsible for at least 40 million deaths and perhaps 80 million or more. This includes deaths he was directly responsible for and deaths resulting from disastrous policies he refused to change." Brittanica reported additional information, as did The Washington Post in 2016.

Regarding Hitler's leadership of Nazi Germany, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) hosts detailed pages offering a wealth of information about both the Holocaust and Hitler.

The U.S. National WWII Museum also published, "The Holocaust was Nazi Germany's deliberate, organized, state-sponsored persecution and genocide of approximately six million European Jews. The genocide of the Jews is also sometimes referred to as Shoah, a Hebrew word for 'catastrophe.' The Nazis also persecuted other groups, perpetrating a genocide against the Roma (derogatorily called 'gypsies'), in which more than 250,000 people were murdered, and killing over three million Soviet prisoners of war, nearly two million Poles, over 250,000 people with disabilities, over 1,000 Jehovah's Witnesses, hundreds of men accused of homosexuality and other victims."

Musk's salute and alleged antisemitism

One reader who emailed about Musk's repost shared an Instagram meme (archived) that described the repost and included a photo of the much-publicized, twice-given Inauguration Day gesture that the online neo-Nazi and far-right communities interpreted as a Nazi salute. Following the moment on Jan. 20, Musk said, "Thank you. My heart goes out to you." Days later, he blamed (archived) the "legacy media" for allegedly misinterpreting his actions.

In May 2024, Musk reinstated the X account for Nick Fuentes, a Holocaust-denying white supremacist. Musk posted (archived) of Fuentes' reinstatement to "let him be crushed by the comments and Community Notes," adding, "It is better to have anti whatever out in the open to be rebutted than grow simmering in the darkness."

In November 2023, Musk replied (archived), "You have said the actual truth," in response to a user who created a post (archived) saying, in part, that Jewish people support "dialectical hatred against whites." Musk later posted clarifications to his reply. Axios reported of the discussion, "Elon Musk backs antisemitic claim; Tesla shares tumble."

Sources:

"Adolf Hitler." U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/adolf-hitler.

"Adolf Hitler: Man and Monster." BBC Teach, https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/articles/zbrx8xs.

Contreras, Russell. "Elon Musk to Reinstate X Account of White Nationalist Nick Fuentes." Axios, 3 May 2024, https://www.axios.com/2024/05/03/elon-musk-nick-fuentes-x-account.

Dickinson, Tim. "Right-Wing Extremists Are Abuzz Over Musk's Straight-Arm Salute." Rolling Stone, 20 Jan. 2025, https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/elon-musk-salute-reaction-right-wing-extremists-1235241866/.

Ghosh, Palash R. "How Many People Did Joseph Stalin Kill?" International Business Times, 5 Mar. 2013, https://www.ibtimes.com/how-many-people-did-joseph-stalin-kill-1111789.

Gilbert, David. "Neo-Nazis Love the Nazi-Like Salutes Elon Musk Made at Trump's Inauguration." Wired, 20 Jan. 2025, https://www.wired.com/story/neo-nazis-love-elon-musk-nazi-like-salutes-trumps-inauguration/.

Haven, Cynthia. "Stalin Killed Millions. A Stanford Historian Answers the Question, Was It Genocide?" Stanford Report, Sept. 2010, https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2010/09/naimark-stalin-genocide-092310.

"How Many People Did the Nazis Murder?" U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/documenting-numbers-of-victims-of-the-holocaust-and-nazi-persecution.

Indeed Employer Content Team. "A Guide to Public vs. Private Sector Employment." Indeed.com, 27 Jan. 2025, https://www.indeed.com/hire/c/info/public-vs-private-sector.

"Joseph Stalin | Biography, World War II, Death, & Facts." Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Joseph-Stalin.

"Joseph Stalin: National Hero or Cold-Blooded Murderer?" BBC Teach, https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/articles/zhv747h.

Liles, Jordan. "Did Musk Give 'Nazi Salute' at Trump's 2025 Inauguration Rally? Here's What We Know." Snopes, 21 Jan. 2025, https://www.snopes.com//news/2025/01/20/musk-nazi-salute/.

---. "Musk's X Didn't Verify Accounts Representing Hitler." Snopes, 26 Feb. 2025, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/musk-hitler-verifiy-accounts/.

"Mao Zedong - Chinese Revolution, Communism, Chairman." Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mao-Zedong/The-road-to-power.

Primack, Dan. "Elon Musk Backs Antisemitic Claim; Tesla Shares Tumble." Axios, 16 Nov. 2023, https://www.axios.com/2023/11/16/elon-musk-antisemitic-claim-tesla-shares.

Schram, Stuart Reynolds. "Mao Zedong | Biography & Facts." Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mao-Zedong.

Somin, Ilya. "Remembering the Biggest Mass Murder in the History of the World." The Washington Post, 3 Aug. 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/08/03/giving-historys-greatest-mass-murderer-his-due/.

Strauss, Valerie, and Daniel Southerland. "How Many Died? New Evidence Suggests Far Higher Numbers for the Victims of Mao Zedong's Era." The Washington Post, 16 July 1994, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1994/07/17/how-many-died-new-evidence-suggests-far-higher-numbers-for-the-victims-of-mao-zedongs-era/01044df5-03dd-49f4-a453-a033c5287bce/.

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