‘A sociopath, if ever there was one’: Holocaust survivor says Auschwitz visit with Elon Musk was nothing more than a photo-op

Elon Musk is facing renewed allegations of antisemitism after a biographer and a guest of honor at his visit to the Auschwitz death camp have labelled him a sociopath. 

For context, the billionaire and high-profile Donald Trump ally bore an uncanny resemblance to a Nazi salute during the president’s inauguration festivities. Musk later dismissed the Nazi comparisons as “pure propaganda” on his social media platform X (though still went on to joke about Hitler), with many pointing to his January 2024 trip to Auschwitz as evidence that he is not antisemitic.

Now, however, the guest of honor who accompanied Musk on that trip has offered her searing perspective on the billionaire’s experience there, writing in a Facebook post that he was “unmoved by the experience.” Julie Gray, the wife of Holocaust survivor Gidon Lev, claimed she “chatted with Elon” during his much-publicized visit to the death camp, saying she “spent hours with him” walking through Auschwitz. “I stood with him, looking at the nauseating heaps of hair, luggage, and shoes flooded with violet light meant to preserve it,” Gray wrote. 

“Is Musk an antisemite?” she added. “People, actually, it’s worse — he doesn’t care whatsoever… He was unmoved by the experience.” Gray went on to offer her scathing criticism of Musk’s appearance at the death camp, describing it as more of a photo-op for the billionaire than an intentional visit to the historic site. “He posed for the cameras of his entourage,” Gray wrote, adding that he was “utterly detached” and only “cared about how he looked.” Concluding the post, Gray described Musk as a “sociopath, if ever there was one,” and said the suggestion “that he is a friend of the Jews is desperately naive.”

The criticism of Musk’s Auschwitz visit didn’t stop there. Seth Abramson, an award-winning author who identifies himself as a biographer of Musk, took to X to co-sign Gray’s post, likewise calling him a “sociopath” and agreeing with her assessment of the billionaire. “This is absolutely chilling,” Abramson wrote of Gray’s . “He truly is a sociopath.” The pair’s criticism of Musk comes a year after that Auschwitz visit, which came to fruition amid allegations that both Musk and X were condoning antisemitism on the platform. 

Those allegations were levelled against Musk on a personal level when he responded in agreement to an X who accused Jewish people of “hatred against whites” by saying they “have said the actual truth.” Musk later apologized for that post, around the same time that large companies like Disney decided to stop advertising on X. Then, Musk visited Auschwitz — alongside his son, and Jewish conservative commentator Ben Shapiro — in what was billed as a show of for the Jewish community, but similar accusations have dogged him more recently in the wake of the inauguration.  

While the Anti-Defamation League said Musk’s gesture was “not a Nazi salute,” they later condemned the jokes made by the billionaire amid the outcry, which included puns about prominent Nazis like Goebbels, Göring, and Himmler. Gray and Abramson aren’t the only ones who’ve criticized Musk in the wake of the gesture, with his former friend writing on Facebook that while the billionaire is “not a Nazi per say,” he nonetheless “wants to control, dominate, and use.”