ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! host Jimmy Kimmel seemingly justified the recent string of vandalism and arson attacks against Elon Musk’s Tesla dealerships and vehicles across the country while spreading a debunked Nazi salute hoax. “Poor guy,” Kimmel sarcastically said of Musk and his company facing attacks, adding, “You do one, maybe two, Nazi salutes, everybody gets all bent out of shape.”
“Someone lit a bunch of Teslas on fire,” Kimmel said during his monologue. “And here’s the thing, I get that people are upset, [but] burning a car might not be great for the environment. I don’t think that’s what they had in mind when they invented the electric car.”
“In Las Vegas yesterday, someone threw a Molotov cocktail at a Tesla service center, at least five Teslas blew up. One from the Molotov, and four because that’s just what Teslas do sometimes,” the Jimmy Kimmel Live! host joked.
“And no one should be setting fires. You could kill somebody, you could hurt somebody. Elon Musk might not care about other people, but decent Americans should,” Kimmel continued.
The nighttime television host went on to claim, “The world’s richest man, again, has been trying to drum up sympathy for himself lately. His sales are down, his stock is down.”
“Last night he was somber as he went through this with Sean Hannity,” Kimmel added, before sharing a clip from an interview Musk had with Fox News, in which the SpaceX CEO said, in part, the following:
Tesla is a peaceful company. We’ve never done anything awful. I’ve never done anything awful. I’ve only done productive things. So, I think we just have a deranged — there’s some kind of mental illness thing going on here, because this doesn’t make any sense.
“Well, let me see if I can explain it for you. When you pull out a chainsaw to celebrate firing thousands of people, they get mad,” Kimmel said in reaction to Musk’s remarks.
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Notably, Kimmel was referring to Musk having been given a chainsaw by Argentina’s President Javier Milei during last month’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), to symbolize the slashing of wasteful government spending.
“My God, this poor guy, you do one, maybe two, Nazi salutes, everybody gets all bent out of shape,” Kimmel added, spreading the false claim that Musk performed Nazi salute in January while celebrating President Donald Trump’s second inauguration.
As Breitbart News reported, corporate media accused the tech tycoon of doing a “Nazi salute” during a Trump event at Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C., in January.
This claim is false. Musk first slapped his heart, extended his arm, and explained the gesture by saying, “My heart goes out to you.” Notably, even the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has conceded that while the moment was “awkward,” it was not malevolent.
Nevertheless, Kimmel’s recent attack against Musk appear to be the TV host doubling down on his comments from Tuesday, when he noted Tesla stock took a hit amid a string of vandalism blitzes against the company, and then advised his viewers — in a dry, sarcastic tone — not to further engage in Tesla vandalism, before pausing long enough to elicit laughter from audience members.
“Vandalizing Tesla vehicles, new Tesla vehicles? Please, don’t ever vandalize Tesla vehicles,” Kimmel quipped, before pausing to stare into the camera.
Jimmy Kimmel Live! audience members then burst into laughter, at which point the TV host proceeded with his monologue, uttering, “And, so, uh…”
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Alana Mastrangelo is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on Facebook and X at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
