Does Billionaire Elon Musk Have Asperger Syndrome? Here's What He's Said About It

In the world of elite billionaires, Elon Musk is at the apex. As one of the richest men in the world, Elon was once known for his forward-thinking approaches to space travel and sustainable energy.

These days, he's a little less "dreamer of humanity's future" and a little more "center of controversy."

As the head of President Donald Trump's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Elon has been trampling through government agencies and threatening cuts to hundreds of vital human service programs. His behavior has always been part "devil may care" and part "eccentric billionaire," but there may be more to it.

Does Elon Musk have Asperger syndrome? Here's what he has had to say about it.

Elon has always been a little quirky, but then again the phrase "eccentric billionaire" doesn't exist for no reason. But is there a deeper reason for it? Elon Musk has weighed in on the topic before.

During a 2021 appearance on Saturday Night Live, Elon gave the opening monologue and touched on the topic of Asperger's. He opened by joking, "I don't always have a lot of intonation or variation in how I speak, which I'm told makes for great comedy."

He then added, "I'm actually making history tonight as the first person with Asperger's to host SNL." He quipped, "Or at least the first person to admit it."

So if we're going off Elon's own words, then yes he has Apserger's.

It's worth noting, however, that "Asperger's" is considered an outdated term. The U.K.'s National Autistic Society explains, "‘Asperger syndrome’ (often shortened to Asperger’s) is no longer used as a diagnostic term for autism and is considered controversial due to the history of Hans Asperger."

In the mid-2010s, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), which is the archive of medical and mental health diagnostic criteria, stopped recognizing Asperger's as a term, pivoting to the use of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) or simply, autism.

Healthline reports, "Though the reasons for this change resulted from unclear distinctions between diagnoses under the original ASD umbrella, it occurred around the same time that more information came to light that Hans Asperger, the person for whom the diagnosis was named, was a German medical officer during World War 2 and was a Nazi collaborator."

During Trump's second inauguration on Jan. 20, 2025, Elon Musk famously stood before the crowd to thank them. He then threw his hand in the air in an approximation of a Nazi salute, before turning to the audience behind him and repeating the gesture. He quickly added, "My heart goes out to you," but the damage from the gesture was done and the outcry was immediate.

Many people tried to defend the gesture, calling it a "Roman Salute." However, the difference between the gestures is pretty much in name only. The Nazi salute was adopted as a slightly modified version of the Roman salute.

But some people were quick to suggest that Elon was simply "stimming." The Cleveland Clinic defines "stimming" as repeatedly making the same gestures or sounds as a self-soothing method.

It's often linked to autistic people and those with behavioral or learning disabilities who may become easily overwhelmed or overstimulated and need to self-soothe.

So was Elon stimming? We can't be sure, but it's not a gesture he's ever engaged in before in public, and stimming behavior is something that is often used over multiple years, or even a lifetime, as a reliable and soothing gesture. So it seems highly unlikely.

Autism professionals and advocates have denounced the suggestion that the salute was due to autistic behavior, suggesting it's harmful to autistics to link discriminatory behavior to autism.

Whether or not someone is autistic, or has Asperger's, as Elon says of himself, we as adults are all accountable for the harm we cause. And if someone is going to trot out a Nazi salute in 2025, they should be held accountable for that action.