NASIONALXPOS.CO.ID, WASHINGTON D.C. – Elon Musk has dismissed the furor over a one-handed gesture he made during a speech celebrating Donald Trump’s inauguration.
At Monday’s event, Musk thanked the crowd for “making it happen,” before placing his right hand over his heart and then raising the same arm into the air directly in front of him. He then turned around and repeated the action to those sitting behind him.
Some on X, his social media platform, likened the gesture to a Nazi salute, though others disagreed.
In response, the SpaceX and Tesla chief posted on X: “Frankly, they need better dirty tricks. The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is so stale.”
Musk, the world’s richest man and a close ally of President Trump, was speaking at the Capital One Arena in Washington DC when he made the gesture.
“My heart goes out to you. Thanks to you, the future of civilization is assured,” the 53-year-old said, after giving a second one-handed salute.
There was an immediate backlash on social media and disagreement about Musk’s intentions.
Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a history professor at New York University, said: “Historians are fascists here. It was a Nazi salute and a very aggressive salute.”
But the Anti-Defamation League, an organization founded to combat antisemitism, disagrees.
“It appears that Elon Musk made an awkward gesture in a moment of passion, not a Nazi salute,” it posted on X.
Andrea Stroppa, Musk’s confidant who linked him to right-wing Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, was reported by Italian media to have uploaded a clip of Musk with the caption: “The Roman Empire is rising again, starting with the Roman salute“.
The Roman salute was widely used in Italy by Benito Mussolini’s Fascist Party, before later being adopted by Adolf Hitler in Germany.
Stroppa later deleted his post, Italian media said. He later posted that “the gesture, which some thought was a Nazi salute, was actually Elon, who has autism, expressing his feelings by saying, ‘I want to give you my heart'”.
“That’s what he said into the microphone. ELON DOESN’T LIKE EXTREMISTS!”
This stance comes as Musk’s politics are increasingly shifting to the right. He recently made statements supporting the AfD party in Germany and the Reform UK party in the UK.
Appearing in Davos at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was asked about comparisons to Nazi salutes, something that is banned in Germany.
“We have freedom of speech in Europe and in Germany,” he said.
“…what we don’t accept is if this supports far-right positions. And this is what I want to emphasize again.”
Musk has been one of Trump’s closest allies and has been appointed to co-chair what the president calls the Department of Government Efficiency. (Red)
