Elon Musk is once again at the center of controversy after he delivered a suspicious-looking salute during Donald Trump’s inauguration.
Towards the tail-end of his speech during Monday’s festivities in Washington D.C., the Tesla Motors CEO thumped his right hand to his chest before shooting it out diagonally with his palms facing down. Users online were quick to point out that Musk’s awkward gesture looked uncomfortably similar to the ‘Sieg Heil’ salute used as a greeting and acknowledgment of rank in Nazi Germany.
Unsurprisingly, the clip quickly went viral and generated a variety of reactions from online users, including one-time UFC title challenger Paulo Costa who offered his response to the surreal moment on X.
“Haha here we go,” Costa wrote.
Musk claims backlash is just another ‘dirty trick’
Musk has since commented on the controversy, claiming that the backlash is nothing more than a “dirty trick” from “they.”
Piers Morgan also quickly came to the defense of Musk, suggesting that while the salute was “ill-advised,” the Sultan of Space X by means meant to use it as a Nazi salute.
“Elon Musk was very ill-advised to do this kind of salute to denote his clearly stated ‘my heart goes out to you’ sentiment… but he obviously didn’t mean it as a Nazi salute and anyone who says he did is being a disingenuous idiot,” Morgan wrote.
neo-nazis are loving elon musk’s Salute
Even if Morgan is right and Musk’s sketchy salute was nothing more than an awkward moment, the incident appears to have really excited the Neo-Nazi community.
“Incredible things are happening already,” Andrew Torba, the founder of Gab, a social media platform popular with antisemites and white supremacists, wrote over a picture of Musk giving the salute.
“WE ARE F*CKING BACK,” the administrator of a Nazi meme channel on Telegram wrote under a clip of Musk giving the salute. Members of the group responded with the lightning bolt emoji, a well-known neo-Nazi reference to the SS.
“I don’t care if this was a mistake, I’m going to enjoy the tears over it,” Christopher Pohlhaus, the leader of the American neo-Nazi group Blood Tribe, wrote on his Telegram channel under a gif of the Musk salute.
Evan Kilgore, a right-wing political commentator, wrote on X: “Holy crap … did Elon Musk just Heil Hitler at the Trump Inauguration Rally in Washington DC … This is incredible.” Kilgore later wrote: “We are so back.”
