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By: World Israel News Staff
Billionaire tech mogul and administrator of the federal Department of Government Efficiency Elon Musk defended Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, criticizing the ongoing corruption trial of the Israeli leader.
On Monday night, Musk retweeted a link to a YouTube clip of a two-year-old documentary on the ongoing criminal trial against the prime minister, which combines three separate accusations, spanning Cases 1000, 2000, and 4000.
The clip was tweeted last week by Fox News host and conservative pundit Mark Levin, who captioned the link “The legal war against Netanyahu.”
The deep state is everywhere https://t.co/BhAjUiskJv
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 24, 2025
Musk retweeted the link, adding, “The deep state is everywhere.”
The Netanyahu trial — which includes charges of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust over the prime minister’s alleged efforts to speed up already approved regulatory changes in exchange for favorable coverage by the Walla news site, plans to curtail the free distribution of a newspaper in exchange for positive coverage by a rival paper, and help businessmen in exchange for large gifts — was kicked off following the November 21, 2019, indictment of the prime minister.
While the trial began in May 2020, it has been repeatedly delayed due to the COVID pandemic, Israel’s political crisis from 2019 to 2022, and the war in Gaza.
Critics have accused prosecutors of attempting a putsch, arguing that there is no legal precedent for considering desirable coverage bribery, and dismissing claims of positive coverage by either outlet cited in the corruption investigations.
Musk, who met with Netanyahu earlier this month, was defended by Netanyahu from accusations of anti-Semitism in January, after some interpreted his hand gesture at a Trump inauguration event as a Nazi salute.
“Elon Musk is being falsely smeared,” Netanyahu tweeted.
“Elon is a great friend of Israel. He visited Israel after the October 7 massacre in which Hamas terrorists committed the worst atrocity against the Jewish people since the Holocaust.
“He has since repeatedly and forcefully supported Israel’s right to defend itself against genocidal terrorists and regimes who seek to annihilate the one and only Jewish state.”
In other Netanyahu related news, WIN reported on Tuesday that the leader of Germany’s largest political party and the candidate most likely to replace outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz came under fire this week after he invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to visit the country.
On Sunday, an alliance of the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Christian Social Union (CSU) won a combined 208 seats in the 630-member German parliament, defeating the center-left SPD, which plummeted to third place, behind the rightist Alternative for Deutschland (AfD).
The election has positioned CDU/CSU chairman Friedrich Merz as the natural candidate for the chancellorship, though he will face tough coalition talks to secure a majority as long as he adheres to his pledge not to form a government with the AfD.
Hours after his victory, Merz spoke by phone with Netanyahu, who congratulated him on his victory and on becoming chancellor-designate.
During their talk, Merz invited Netanyahu to visit Germany, pledging to ensure that the Israeli premier would not face prosecution under the International Criminal Court arrest warrant issued last year over the war against Hamas.
“Chancellor-designate Merz thanked the Prime Minister for the conversation and said that he would invite him to make an official visit to Germany, in overt defiance of the scandalous International Criminal Court decision to label the Prime Minister a war criminal,” the Prime Minister’s Office said on Sunday.
A day later, Merz confirmed to reporters that he had indeed invited Netanyahu to visit Germany in defiance of the ICC arrest warrant.
“I think it is a completely absurd idea that an Israeli prime minister cannot visit the Federal Republic of Germany,” Merz said.
