FACT CHECK: History of antisemitic gesture protestors reported at ‘Tesla takedown’

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) - Over the weekend, protestors gathered at what they called a “Tesla takedown,” advocating for the removal of Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from the federal government.

KCTV5 was there the morning of March 22 as attendees waved signs and chanted outside the Kansas City Tesla dealership on State Line Road. Some passing cars honked in response, attendees cheered back, and the protest continued for several hours before dispersing in the afternoon.

PREVIOUS COVERAGE: ‘Nobody elected Musk’: Kansas City protesters voice frustrations outside Tesla dealership

That evening, however, screenshots from a video were posted to Kansas City’s subreddit. The post has since garnered over a thousand comments and ten thousand reactions. The full video, linked in the comments, has over twenty-five thousand views on Youtube.

The video shows a heated confrontation between someone on the Tesla lot and the protestors standing on State Line Road. As the protestors yell at the person and he yells back, he suddenly makes a gesture toward them that appears to be a Nazi salute.

If it is a Nazi salute, that’s hate speech that KCTV5 will not show. Although the Reddit post no longer allows new comments to be made, the old ones remain and several viewers reached out, upset at the antisemitic gesture.

Fact check:

As a part of this fact check, we reached out to the Tesla dealership to address rumors that the person in the video is a Tesla employee. A representative confirmed that he is not.

We also wanted to give an overview of this internationally-recognized gesture’s history. The Nazi Party first adopted the salute in the early 1920s as a symbol of allegiance to Adolf Hitler.

In 1933, after Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany, it became compulsory for German public employees to use it. Ultimately, the salute became the common greeting amongst German citizens. By the end of 1934, courts were established to punish citizens who refused to use it.

Since the conclusion of World War II, several European countries, including Germany, have outlawed the Nazi salute as a willing promotion of antisemitism. In the United States, the Supreme Court has upheld that the Constitution’s First Amendment prevents most federal restrictions on hate speech.

The question over the use of the Nazi salute has plagued Tesla CEO Elon Musk since he made a similar gesture in late January 2025.

Musk, who owns X, posted several responses to the criticism, including: “The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is soo tired.”

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