Elon Musk and the 'Nazi salute'

What the hell just happened there then?

In the digital age it seems that we are increasingly expected to choose a side and then defend that preferred tribe at all costs. This can lead to some deeply embarrassing scenarios where people feel compelled to deny what is blatantly true because the ‘wrong people’ are banging the drum about it.

Some of us have an almost pathological desire for finding out what is true however, and this way of thinking contrasts with the demand for the constant stream of WWE-like rhetoric whereby the only two possibilities are heroes or Nazis. Those of us who are sticklers for the truth can find ourselves heavily criticising someone one week only to find ourselves defending them the week after, thus annoying and confusing everyone in the process.

This is why I can experience the wrath of Musk fans when I heavily criticise him, and why I now look forward to being labelled a Musk fanboy and ‘Nazi apologist’ for what I am about to write here.

Which brings me to the inauguration of Donald Trump and specifically, when Elon Musk took to the stage.

The below clip has been spread online with claims that Elon Musk is brazenly throwing a ‘nazi salute’.

And you have to be honest…it looks bad, doesn't it?

But was he actually doing a Nazi salute? No, he wasn't. And it's remarkable that much of the left are now pretending to care about antisemitic gestures and sentiments when they have endorsed or ignored them every weekend since October 7th 2023.

However, the longer, less dishonestly edited clip of this gesture provides the context, in which Elon Musk qualifies the gesture with “My heart goes out to you”.

Now, were you a massive nerd and was asked to enthusiastically gesture in a way that conveys the sentiment of throwing your heart to a crowd, you may reasonably end up with something like this.

But should Elon Musk have known that standing in front of the entire planet and gesturing in a way that is indistinguishable from a Nazi salute may have been bad optics to say the least? Yes—and that's why it was a mindbogglingly daft thing to do.

But Musk has proven himself to be a massive dork who is incredibly socially awkward and not particularly thoughtful about how he behaves, so this is perfectly on brand.

And thanks to this combination we now have a situation where the left gets to enjoy their favourite hobby of seeing Nazis everywhere they look and actual Nazis get giddy at the thought that the richest man in the world has their back.

I naively assumed there were only two options in response here: Nazi or plonker, but the more committed of Musk's acolytes propose a third option. And it's this: it was neither Nazism nor accident— but rather another deftly executed display of Musk’s genius.

You see, Musk was fully aware of what he was doing, which was to troll and bait the media and libtards into losing their mind. I feel like these sorts are one Musk fart away from claiming he can control the weather too.

In conclusion, he probably shouldn't have done that to put it charitably, but let's not pretend he chose to stand before the eyes of the world and seized the opportunity to big up his boy Adolf.

Musk responded to Nazi allegations on ‘X’ by saying “Frankly, they need better dirty tricks. The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is sooo tired”. And he's right this time.

Musk appears to be doing enough damage to the public discourse and political process. And screeching about Nazis just makes it harder for legitimate criticism of him to rise above the noise.