Auschwitz is steeped in a cruel history, it bares the despicable truth behind the genocide of the Jewish people, among others.
Nowadays, it has become a dark tourist destination – and an important one, especially for Gidon Lev, a Holocaust survivor who shared a difficult tour around the complex with Elon Musk.
Lev, a Czechoslovak-born Israeli dairy farmer, was invited to the concentration camp as a ‘special guest’ and was accompanied by his partner Julie Gray – a Californian who moved to Israel in 2012, meeting her lover five years later.
Taking to Facebook, Gray has slammed the billionaire claiming he was ‘unmoved by the experience’.
“I see people posting that Elon was at Auschwitz this time last year – therefore, his recent ‘gesture’ is not antisemitic. I was there, too. Last year. With Elon,” she wrote on Wednesday (January 22).
“I am embarrassed that I have photos of this on my phone. My love, Gidon Lev, was the ‘special guest’ of this photo-op event. We thought, at the time, that it would be good publicity. But I would not share the photo today.
“I chatted with Elon Musk. I spent hours with him and walked with him through Auschwitz. I stood with him, looking at the nauseating heaps of hair, luggage, and shoes flooded with violet light meant to preserve it.”
Julie Gray and Gidon Lev accompanied Elon Musk around Auschwitz last year (Facebook/Julie Gray)
It came just two days after Musk was accused of making a ‘Nazi salute’ on two separate occasions while addressing Trump supporters, at President Donald Trump‘s inauguration on Monday (January 20).
Musk controversially made the gesture on stage at the inauguration, immediately after saying: “Thank you for making it happen. Thank you, my heart goes out to you.”
The billionaire has since denied this was his intention, and other defenders have argued he was doing a Roman salute, or was ‘giving his heart to the crowd’.
Gray’s post continued: “Is Musk an antisemite? People, actually, it’s worse – he doesn’t care whatsoever. Elon, father of ‘little X’ as he described his freezing cold son to me, literally does not care. He was unmoved by the experience.
“For Gidon, to be in the place where his father, Ernst, died on a death march – whether shot by the side of the road or having simply collapsed – was a huge deal.
“Elon did not care. He was about his press junket and his bodyguards. I was ten feet from him as he posed for the cameras of his entourage. He was utterly detached. He cared about how he looked.”
Elon Musk attended a symposium on ‘Antisemitism Online’ during the European Jewish Association conference in Krakow, in January las year (BARTOSZ SIEDLIK/AFP via Getty Images)
Gray’s post went on: “When he placed a wreath at Auschwitz and Gidon was overlooked, he walked away with the cameras whirring.
“This is Elon Musk. A sociopath, if ever there was one. To deduce, from this visit, that he is a friend of the Jews is desperately naive.”
Meanwhile, just two days ago (January 23), Musk was told off by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which initially let Musk’s alleged Nazi salute slide as they claimed it was just an ‘awkward gesture’.
CEO of ADL, Jonathan Greenblatt, wrote: “We’ve said it hundreds of times before and we will say it again: the Holocaust was a singularly evil event, and it is inappropriate and offensive to make light of it. The Holocaust is not a joke.”
Yes, Musk really wrote about the Nazi’s in jest. He posted on Twitter: “Don’t say Hess to Nazi accusations! Some people will Goebbels anything down! Stop Gőring your enemies! His pronouns would’ve been He/Himmler! Bet you did nazi that coming.”
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Today has been coming for a long time, if you’re a Republican you’ll be delighted but if you’re not then it’s a bitter pill to swallow.
The inauguration of Donald Trump as the 47th US President will take place in Washington DC, beginning at 11.30am Eastern Time and around half-an-hour into it the 78-year-old will be sworn in for his second time in charge.
But during the President-elect’s final ‘MAGA’ rally before he is sworn in, he spoke about vote counting computers in Pennsylvania and people on Twitter think he might have incriminated himself and Elon Musk in ‘odd’ confession at the rally.
President-elect Donald Trump came out with a weird statement about vote-counting computers during his final speech before being sworn in as President (NewsMax TV)
Speaking of Musk at the rally, Trump said: “And then he journeyed to Pennslyvania where he spent a month and a half campaigning for me and he’s a popular guy.
“He knows those computers better than anybody. All those computers, those vote-counting computers, and we ended up winning Pennsylvania like in a landslide.
Taking to the social media platform, one user posted: “This is called a confession.”
“What an odd thing to say,” another typed.
While a third was shocked at what the soon-to-be president said. They said: “Did he just……..”
With a fourth adding: “Now, Trump suggests that Elon Musk rigged the PA vote-counting computers in his favor.
“Surely the GOP will be demanding a full investigation into Trump and his oligarch wannabe-dictator buddies. Right?”
However, not everyone saw it this way, and suggested that people are grasping at straws.
They tweeted: “I literally just watched it and he never said any of that…”
Elon Musk, who spoke during Trump’s victory rally, apparently knows vote-counting computers better than anybody (NewsMax TV)
While another explained: “‘Depending on which county a resident lives in, they may vote by voting machine, or they may vote with a paper ballot that is scanned in.
“Pennsylvania uses different systems to count mail-in ballots in some parts of the state that are used to count the same-day vote, and every vote in the state leaves a paper trail.’
“Therefore it would be technically impossible to hack voting machines since the paper trail would not match up. Wishful thinking though.”
Could that be all it was? I’m no expert but there’s too much conspiracy around vote-counting in the US, I personally believe Trump won fair and square – as did President Joe Biden in the 2020 elections.
“Now I’m convinced the inauguration will be inside due to protests,” commented one person, and by the outrage his comments have struck on Musk’s own social media platform… moving it indoors might be best.
Tesla’s brand value has taken a $15 billion hit and Elon Musk is the reason why, analysis has shown.
The electric car company – and Elon Musk – have been making headlines for all the wrong reasons recently.
Some 5 million Teslas were called back worldwide last year, making it the most recalled automotive brand of 2024.
On top of that, a major investor sold $585 million worth of shares, once again because of the tech billionaire.
And, on the internet, people have been ripping into the controversial Cybertruck’s build quality.
Elon Musk came in as CEO of Tesla in 2008 but was an early investor when the brand was founded in 2003 (Ricky Carioti – Pool/Getty Images)
Well, analysis by research and consulting firm Brand Finance found Tesla’s brand value dropped for its second consecutive year in 2024.
It now stands at an estimated $43 billion, down from $58.3 billion at the beginning of 2024 and $66.2 billion at the start of 2023, according to the firm’s annual ranking.
Tesla’s stock price did rocket by 63 percent last year, hitting a record high in December following Donald Trump’s November election win.
But Brand Finance CEO David Haigh commented that CEO Musk – who was twice accused of making a ‘Nazi salute’ at President Trump’s inauguration on Monday – and his public antics have its downsides.
Haigh explained: “There are people who think he’s wonderful, but many that don’t.
“If you are buying electric vehicles, his persona is highly likely to impact your view of whether or not you want to buy one of his company’s cars, but that’s only one of many factors.”
The Tesla CEO has been at the center of a number of controversies (Christian Marquardt – Pool/Getty Images)
Brand Finance analyzed answers from about 175,000 survey respondents worldwide, with 16,000 people sharing their views on Tesla.
And its scores across key measurements including ‘consideration,’ ‘reputation’ and ‘recommendation’ tanked in the US, Europe and Asia, the research found.
In Europe, its ‘consideration’ score – whether people would think about buying from a brand – dropped from 21 percent to 16 percent on average from 2024 to 2025.
And in what will be a surprise to absolutely no one, Tesla maintained a high loyalty score of 90% in the US.
So, customers who already owned a Tesla vehicle ‘were likely to keep driving it over the next 12 months,’ according to CNBC.
Its US recommendation score dropped from 8.2 out of 10 to 4.3, however…
Tesla’s recommendation scores dropped in the US, despite loyalty among owners (John Paraskevas/Newsday RM via Getty Images)
Haigh said Tesla’s plummeting scores suggests the company’s ‘pulling power is weakening,’ adding there’s a risk that Tesla ‘won’t be able to sell so many products, and it won’t be able to sell at such high prices as it did before.’
He continued: “Unless Tesla can come up with a whole range of new products that will really excite consumers, and unless they can mitigate some of the antagonism caused by their leader, they will be seen as past their peak and will begin to go down.”
Elsewhere, analysts appear to view Trump’s presidency as a positive for Tesla – but an overall negative for electric vehicles.
In early January, JPMorgan estimated that about 40% of Tesla’s profits would be in danger after Trump takes office, as per Investor’s Business Daily.
This is taking into account Trump’s proposals to remove EV tax credits and subsidies.
“Tesla does not appear to us on track to dominate the global auto industry amidst the electrification transition, which we view as only the starting point for present valuation,” JPMorgan analyst Ryan Brinkman wrote.
UNILAD has reached out to Tesla for comment.
Elon Musk has been sued by the US markets regulator for allegedly buying Twitter shares at ‘artificially low prices’ after failing to disclose the stake he had amassed before buying the platform.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a lawsuit against the Tesla CEO on Tuesday and claimed Twitter investors were underpaid $150 million in stock prices as a result of his actions.
Before Musk finalized his controversial $44 million takeover of the once-popular social media platform – which he later renamed X – he began to buy up shares in the company, the lawsuit claims.
After acquiring more than five percent of the business‘ stock in March 2022, Musk had 10 days to report his ownership.
Elon Musk bought out Twitter in 2022 (Chesnot/Getty Images)
But the SEC’s filing says Musk did not report until 21 days after going beyond that threshold.
The US regulator said Musk’s ‘violation’ had resulted in ‘substantial economic harm to investors’ and in its filing asked the court to order Musk, the richest man on the planet, with a net worth of more than $400 billion, as per Forbes, to pay a fine and return ‘unjust’ profits.
The SEC said Twitter’s share price rose by more than 27 percent after Musk made his share purchase public in April 2022.
“During the period that Musk was required to publicly disclose his beneficial ownership but had failed to do so, he spent more than $500 million purchasing additional shares of Twitter common stock,” the lawsuit says.
X investors lost out on $150 million in share prices (Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)
“Because Musk failed to timely disclose his beneficial ownership, he was able to make these purchases from the unsuspecting public at artificially low prices, which did not yet reflect the undisclosed material information of Musk’s beneficial ownership of more than five percent of Twitter common stock and investment purpose.”
Musk’s lawyer, Adam Spiro, told the Huffington Post the lawsuit was a ‘sham’ and a petty effort by outgoing SEC chair Gary Gensler to hurt Musk.
“The SEC’s multi-year campaign of harassment against Mr. Musk culminated in the filing of a single-count ticky tak complaint against Mr. Musk … for an alleged administrative failure to file a single form — an offense that, even if proven, carries a nominal penalty,” Spiro said.
Musk will lead the new Department of Government Efficiency alongside former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
In a post to X responding to the SEC, Musk himself called it a ‘totally broken organization’ and accused it of wasting time going after him when ‘there are so many actual crimes that go unpunished’.
The tech billionaire could soon have a say over the running of the SEC when he begins his role as an adviser to US President-elect Donald Trump as part of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has been tasked with trimming the US federal budget.
The new department will sit outside government but will offer guidance to the Trump White House, with Musk leading it alongside former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.
Most people know Elon Musk as the most wealthy man in the world, but Musk’s mother certainly isn’t a fan of the term.
Last year in December, Maye Musk went on Fox Business and discussed the rhetoric around her son.
It was clear Maye Musk sees her son in quite the positive light, as she took issue with the suggestion people were fascinated about the billionaire because of his money.
Speaking to Fox’s Stuart Varney, she said: “I don’t like the word wealthy or billionaire or things like that.
“Because I think its degrading. I think he is the genius of the world and people are loving him for that.”
Not really sure being called the richest person on the planet and being that wealthy is degrading, but sure, okay…
Maye Musk insisted people weren’t interested in her son because he was wealthy (Fox Business)
She continued: “When they see me, they go crazy, because I’m his mother but they love him because of what he does, and they respect him, and I am very proud of him.”
The Fox News host questioned what it must be like for Maye as the mother of Elon, who has gone from one venture to the next over the last few decades.
She answered: “Every time I am surprised and every time I say don’t take on something else and he doesn’t listen to me and then he makes a big change.
“With this neurolink people are saying ‘why is he [doing it], I don’t want something in my head’ and I say well you are not paralyzed or you aren’t blind.
“If you are blind and you don’t want to see then you can argue the point, you don’t have to have a chip in your head.”
Unfortunately for Maye Musk, people on social media didn’t really side with her.
The video has recently started circulating on Twitter and people just aren’t getting onboard her Elon hype train.
One user wrote: “This is nauseating.
“People are interested in Elon because he is unfathomably rich & now because he’s jumped into bed with Trump.
“He’s not the first person to send a rocket to space, he’s not the first person to invent a car, or a robot.
People on social media just didn’t agree with Maye Musk (Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic)
“His mom has stars in her eyes, understandably.”
Another said: “Genius of the World. Next it will be the Emperor of the World. Musk is good at raiding companies. That’s about it.”
A third added: “He doesn’t design the rockets, the engines, he doesn’t do any calculations of any kind. He doesn’t program the systems, he doesn’t do market research, he has a lot of money to pay a lot of people to do that job. That doesn’t make him a genius.”
Another ruthlessly added: “Wealthy is all he is. He does not have a single redeeming characteristic. Sadly he thinks his money can buy him everything he wants. But it cant buy him grace, humanity, love or diminish his unlikeability.”
Ouch. Well, in the meantime, Musk’s mother will just have to settle for people calling him the most wealthy man in the world… how terrible.
