A veteran Telsa manager in the US said he was fired after complaining about jokes made by chief executive Elon Musk that referred to Nazi leaders.
Jared Ottoman, an engineer who worked with Tesla’s battery suppliers, said he was dismissed by the electric vehicle company Thursday, according to the New York Times.
Ottoman had slammed Musk on LinkedIn in late January after the mogul used some eye-raising puns about Nazi henchmen Heinrich Himmler and Hermann Göring.
“This post by Tesla’s current CEO name drops genocidal assholes as a joke and has 308,000 likes. “What’s a mensch to do?” Ottoman wrote.
Musk had quipped about what pronouns Himmler, the psychotic head of the feared Gestapo would use.
“His pronouns would’ve been He/Himmler!” in a post on X.
He then wrote about Goring, the general of the Luftwaffe, “Stop Goring your enemies!”
“Bet you did nazi that coming,” he added, followed by a laughing emoji. The post currently has 306,000 likes and 55 million views.
Ottoman, who had worked at Tesla for seven years, said he had previously raised the issue about Musk’s alleged antisemitc comments over the years.
“Starting in 2022 and especially the last week I’ve raised the issue internally multiple times, with managers, HR, legal compliance, investor relations. And while overwhelmingly people offer personal support, Tesla as a company has remained silent,” Ottoman wrote.
His post also linked to an article by the Forward, a Jewish newspaper, that documented “every instance of antisemitic activity involving Musk we have found so far.”
The Post reached out to Tesla for comment.
Musk made a hand gesture during President Trump’s inauguration parade in Washington, DC, that many claimed was a Nazi salute, an accusation he brushed off.
“The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is sooo tired,’” Musk posted on X several hours after he left the stage.
