Musk's Hitler tweet on Trudeau prompts backlash in Canada

Tesla chief's Twitter account briefly showed message comparing Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau to Nazi leader

Tesla chief executive Elon Musk accused a US regulator of trying to stifle his speech. AFP

Elon Musk appears to have deleted a tweet that made a satirical comparison between Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Adolf Hitler.

It wasn’t immediately clear if Mr Musk, the chief executive of Tesla and the world’s richest person, deleted it on his own or at the urging of Twitter.

Mr Musk, 50, was replying to a post by cryptocurrency trade publication CoinDesk about Mr Trudeau’s emergency orders aimed at cutting off funds to protesters who have blocked border crossings and camped out in Canada’s capital.

He tweeted a photo of Hitler with the text, “Stop comparing me to Justin Trudeau” at the top and, “I had a budget” at the bottom.

The tweet generated backlash from groups such as the American Jewish Committee, an advocacy organisation, which called on Mr Musk to apologise for making reference to the dictator who oversaw the genocide of millions.

Mr Musk “must apologise immediately”, the group said, and added that comparing Mr Trudeau to a “genocidal dictator who murdered millions is not an appropriate way to criticise policies".

Francois-Philippe Champagne, Canada's science and innovation minister, described Mr Musk's remarks as “frankly shocking” and defended his country's values.

Mr Musk holds Canadian, US and South African citizenship.

The controversy comes as Tesla faces complaints over racial discrimination and harassment.

California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing sued Tesla last week for racial discrimination and harassment after finding a widespread pattern of mistreatment of black workers at the electric car maker’s factory near San Francisco.

The Tesla chief executive on Thursday accused a US regulator of trying to stifle his speech.

In a letter to US District Judge Alison Nathan, lawyers for Mr Musk, a long-time critic of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), accused the agency of propagating “endless unfounded investigations” into the Tesla boss and his company.

Ms Nathan oversaw a 2018 agreement in which Mr Musk and Tesla each agreed to pay $20 million to settle SEC charges that Mr Musk had defrauded investors with false claims on Twitter about a possible go-private transaction that was quickly aborted.

The settlement also imposed strict rules on Mr Musk's use of social media, requiring pre-approval from Tesla counsel over statements with key financial information.

The letter to Ms Nathan from lawyer Alex Spiro also accused the SEC of dragging its feet in distributing the $40m to investors, while it has cracked down on Mr Musk's use of social media.

The letter comes 10 days after Tesla disclosed that it received an SEC subpoena seeking information on the company's compliance with the 2018 agreement.

Meanwhile, US car safety regulators on Thursday said they have launched another investigation into Tesla, this time tied to complaints that its vehicles can stop on roads for no apparent reason.

Agencies contributed to this report