A local affiliate of the US network CBS in Milwaukee has fired a weather anchor after she allegedly referred to Elon Musk as a Nazi on social media. The business partner of US President Donald Trump has denied making a Nazi salute during his speech at the inauguration of Trump on Monday, calling the accusations a “dirty trick” of his critics.
WDJT-TV (Channel 58), where meteorologist Sam Kuffel had worked since 2019, confirmed her departure, but did not provide an official explanation in an internal memo or public comments, as reported by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The station described the incident as a “personal matter”. Kuffel was reportedly fired a day after a comment about Musk’s gesture on her Instagram account.
The television station has removed Kuffel’s biography from its website and no longer mentions her in its weather program, but still preserves the articles she wrote. Her Instagram account has been set to private, but screenshots of her posts, allegedly preserving her comments, are available online. She has not made a public statement about the incident.
Prior to her work at WDJT-TV, the journalist worked at WAOW-TV (Channel 9) in Wausau, after graduating from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee with a degree in atmospheric science.
Critics have accused Musk of imitating the Hitler salute with his gesture. He has denied this assessment and said that his opponents should find better ways to refer to anyone who does not fit their mold as a “Hitler”.
The Anti-Defamation League, a US-based organization that monitors anti-Semitism and hate speech, described Musk’s gesture as “awkward”, but did not claim that it was a Nazi salute.