If a person did not mean to make a Nazi salute, but made something that looked just like a Nazi salute in front of a giant crowd and a worldwide television audience, a logical first step to clarifying the situation might be denying that that gesture was a Nazi salute. Elon Musk has not done that. Instead, he called the characterizations of a certain Sieg Heil-flavored gesture he made multiple times at the bizarre indoor “inaugural parade” for newly sworn-in Felon-in-Chief Donald Trump Monday afternoon “sooo tired.” He included a snoozy emoji too, in case those extra o’s weren’t doing it.
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On X (formerly Twitter), the social media platform that he owns, Musk responded Monday evening to the brouhaha over the full-arm gesture, which he made multiple times from the stage of the Capital One Arena, but did not offer a nein to the Nazi accusations.
“Frankly, they need better dirty tricks,” he wrote. “The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is sooo tired.”
The thing is, people weren’t calling him Hitler. They were saying that he made a gesture that people who really dig Hitler typically make. It would be very easy to just plainly say that that wasn’t the intention, but Musk just let that pass.
Holocaust deniers and openly self-identified Neo-Nazis were thrilled to see the tech mogul and DOGE Head DOGE-er appear to acknowledge them.
Far-right political commentator Evan Kilgore tweeted a clip of the moment Monday, writing, “Holy crap…Did @elonmusk just Heil Hitler at the Trump Inauguration Rally in Washington D.C…This is incredible.” He added two fire emojis for good measure, and followed up in another tweet: “We are so back,” appending a—wait for it—saluting emoji. Oh.
In his replies, Kilgore repeatedly insisted that “it’s a joke” and that “we all know that wasn’t his intention.” Do…we? Also on Monday, he tweeted, “Elon Musk is autistic. He was excited. We all know his intentions weren’t to make a Sieg Heil. It looked much more like a Roman Salute. Can we all have a sense of humor for 5 seconds?”
(Incidentally, Musk first opened up about his neurodivergence on Saturday Night Live in 2021.)
The twist: The Roman Salute was also known as the Fascist Salute, and was later adopted by—you guessed it!—the Nazis.
On Tuesday morning, Kilgore posted again, insisting that the motion “was out of excitement and autism” and called those conflating it with the Nazi gesture “retarded.”
The Anti-Defamation League also leaped to Musk’s defense in a post on X, hedging and calling the times “a delicate moment” and urging followers to give him “the benefit of the doubt.”
“It seems that @elonmusk made an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute, but again, we appreciate that people are on edge,” the anti-hate group wrote on Monday afternoon.
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On The Daily Show Monday evening, host Jon Stewart first jokingly agreed with the ADL’s characterization, then, after Musk repeated the gesture in the clip, burst out, “Son of bitch! You really want to make sure that people in the back can see it!”
This is far from the first brush with Nazi accusations that Trump and his merry band of besties have had. There’s the report from former Trump chief of staff John Kelly that Trump engaged in some light Hitler roleplay, asking why his military leaders “can’t be like the German generals,” and ex-wife Ivana Trump’s revelation that Donald kept a book of Hitler’s speeches by his bedside (Trump said that if he did have the book, he certainly hadn’t read it). Kelly also recalled Trump musing that “Hitler did a lot of good things,” and his new vice president, JD Vance, denounced him in the past as “America’s Hitler.” Robert F. Kennedy Jr., too, compared him (negatively) to the dictator. Oh, and then there’s the time that Trump attended an event meant to denounce antisemitism and said that “If I don’t win this election…the Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss.” All in all, Trump and Co.’s track record isn’t the strongest if they’re trying to not be accused of being Nazis.
But, hey, looking at Musk’s tweets, that’s apparently not what they’re going for.
Elon Musk did not immediately respond to Vanity Fair’s request for comment.
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