Elon Musk responds to backlash over gesture at Donald Trump rally
Elon Musk brushed off the one-arm gesture that sparked outrage during a speech celebrating Donald Trump’s inauguration.
At Monday’s event, Musk thanked the audience for “making this happen,” before placing his right hand over his heart and extending the same arm into the air directly in front of him. He then turns around and repeats the action to the person sitting behind him.
Some on X, a social media platform he owns, likened the gesture to a Nazi salute, but others disagreed.
In response, the SpaceX and Tesla chief posted on X: “Frankly, they need better dirty tricks. The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attacks are so tiring.”
Musk, the world’s richest man and a close ally of President Trump, made the gesture during a speech at Capital One Arena in Washington, DC.
“My heart goes out to you. It is because of you that the future of civilization is secured,” the 53-year-old said after giving a second one-arm salute.
There was an immediate backlash on social media and division over Musk’s intentions.
“Here are the historians of fascism,” said Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a professor of history at New York University. “It was a Nazi salute and a very bellicose salute.”
But the Anti-Defamation League, a group that aims to combat anti-Semitism, disagrees.
“Elon Musk appears to have made an awkward gesture in a passionate moment other than a Nazi salute,” the post on
Musk’s close friend Andrea Stroppa, who linked Musk to far-right Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, posted Musk’s video, Italian media reported. Video, with the text: “The Roman Empire is back from the Roman tribute.”
The Roman Rite was widely used by Benito Mussolini’s Fascist Party in Italy and was later adopted by Adolf Hitler in Germany.
Italian media said Stropa later deleted his post. He later posted, “The gesture that some have mistaken for a Nazi salute is actually Elon, who is autistic, expressing his feelings by saying, ‘I want to give you my heart.'” .
“That’s exactly what he said into the microphone. Elon doesn’t like extremists!”
The move comes as Musk’s political leanings increasingly shift to the right. He has recently issued statements supporting Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany party and Britain’s anti-immigration party Reform Party.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz appeared at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos and was asked about comparisons with the Nazi salute, which is banned in Germany.
“We have freedom of speech in Europe and Germany,” he said.
“…What we don’t accept is whether this supports a far-right position. That’s what I want to repeat again.”
Musk has become one of Trump’s closest allies and was tapped to co-lead the president’s so-called Department of Government Effectiveness.
