In January 2025, a post about tech billionaire Elon Musk, purportedly written by someone who knew him for years, was shared widely online. Philip Low, a scientist and founder of NeuroVigil, a company that developed a portable brain activity monitor, reportedly wrote on his social media profiles that Musk was not a Nazi, but that he "believes he is above everyone else."
The post available on LinkedIn (archived) and Facebook (archived) was a response to Musk's controversial gesture at U.S. President Donald Trump's inauguration rally, which many observers called a Nazi salute. The post said Low had known Musk for 14 years and that they texted frequently and went to each other's birthdays before they had a falling out. Part of the post reads:
Elon is not a Nazi, per se.
He is something much better, or much worse, depending on how you look at it.
Nazis believed that an entire race was above everyone else.
Elon believes he is above everyone else. He used to think he worked on the most important problems. When I met him, he did not presume to be a technical person — he would be the first to say that he lacked the expertise to understand certain data. That happened later. Now, he acts as if he has all the solutions.
[…]
Elon did two Nazi salutes.
He did them for five main reasons:
1. He was concerned that the "Nazi wing" of the MAGA movement, under the influence of Steve Bannon, would drive him away from Trump, somewhere in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, rather than in the West Wing which is where he wants to be. He was already feeling raw over the fact that Trump did not follow his recommendation for Treasury Secretary and that the Senate also did not pick his first choice;
2. He was upset that he had had to go to Israel and Auschwitz to make up for agreeing with a Nazi sympathizer online and wanted to reclaim his "power" just like when he told advertisers to "go f*** yourself". This has nothing to do with Asperger's;
3. There are some Jews he actually hates: Sam Altman is amongst them;
4. He enjoys a good thrill and knew exactly what he was doing;
5. His narcissistic self was hoping the audience would reflect his abject gesture back to him, thereby showing complete control and dominion over it, and increasing his leverage over Trump. That did not happen.
Bottom line: Elon is not a Nazi but he did give two Nazi Salutes, which is completely unacceptable.
Low and Musk did have a prior connection, as evidenced by their appearance in an interview together, and Musk's early investment in NeuroVigil. However, we do not know the extent of their relationship, nor are we able to independently verify the claims Low makes in his post. We have reached out to Low and Musk through their companies to learn more about their former friendship and will update this post if we receive more information.
A NeuroVigil spokesperson told Snopes that the LinkedIn and Facebook posts were indeed written by Low and from his authentic social media accounts. The spokesperson also told us that Musk and Low became friends after meeting in France in 2011.
We found a 2013 interview with Low and Musk, where they are seated together and speak about their work with scientist Crystal Dilworth. Per the video description: "Dr. Crystal Dilworth engages in a fireside chat with space entrepreneur Elon Musk and inventor and computational neuroscientist Philip Low to discover how they are changing the world and why."
The website for NeuroVigil also listed Musk as an adviser but noted that his services had been terminated. Alongside Musk's bio, it read:
Mr. Musk's services as an advisor to NeuroVigil were terminated with cause by Dr. Low on December 17th 2021.
Mr. Musk has never held day-to-day operating functions with NeuroVigil, does not speak on behalf of NeuroVigil, and his views, including on neuroscience, artificial intelligence, the COVID-19 pandemic, certain public officials and rescue personnel, animal experimentation, CEO compensation and crypto currencies certainly do not reflect the views of the company.
Mr. Musk owns less than 0.05% of NeuroVigil and has not been personally invited to re-invest in the company.
In a post from his verified Facebook account, Low gave more detail on Musk's alleged power plays and how his relationship with Musk worsened over time, including an interaction with Musk's ex-wife years ago (emphasis ours):
All his talk about getting to Mars to "maintain the light of consciousness" or about "free speech absolutism" is actually BS Elon knowingly feeds people to manipulate them. Everything Elon does is about acquiring and consolidating power. That is why he likes far right parties, because they are easier to control. That is also why he gave himself $56 Billion which could have gone to the people actually doing the work and innovations he is taking credit for at Tesla (the reason he does not do patents is because he would not be listed as an inventor as putting a fake inventor on a patent would kill it and moreover it would reveal the superstars behind the work). His lust for power is also why he did xAI and Neuralink, to attempt to compete with OpenAI and NeuroVigil, respectively, despite being affiliated with them. Unlike Tesla and Twitter, he was unable to conquer those companies and tried to create rivals. He announced Neuralink just after I invited his ex-wife, which she and I notified him about, to a fundraising dinner for Hebrew University in London (The fact that she tried to kiss me — I immediately pushed her away — while taking a photo at that event, even if playfully, clearly may have added to the alienation and possible emasculation he may have felt when she spoke to me in a pool at a party when they were together and she was naked. To not be disrespectful to her or to him, I stayed but looked at the sky whilst talking to her). I fired him with cause in December 2021 when he tried to undermine [NeuroVigil]. It is ironic that years later, he clearly tried to undermine Twitter before buying it, and in my view, blowing it up and using it to manipulate the masses to lean to the far right in country after country, including the USA.
While the above statement by Low is from his verified social media account, we cannot confirm the claims within the statement. We do know, however, that Low and Musk had a prior connection through their work, though we do not have all the details on how their personal friendship deteriorated. We will update this story if we hear more from Musk.