On Jan. 20, 2025, just hours after President Donald Trump was sworn into office, billionaire Elon Musk set fire to the internet after beginning his speech at the Capital One Arena in Washington with a gesture that closely resembled the Nazi salute.
Many MAGA supporters insist that Musk’s gesture, which he repeated twice, was simply a recall of the Roman salute. However, his aggressive body language has been understood as a symbol of antisemitism and genocide by millions of Americans across the states. “My opinion is that it’s insulting, it’s insulting to our history and I think it’s insulting to our Jewish population…everyday we strive to make progress and every time something like this happens it takes us a step back…actions speak louder than words,” said Wayne Currie, Director of the Intercultural Center at Saint Anselm College.
It is no shock that this ordeal has fueled anger across Europe during the first days of Mr. Trump’s second term in the Presidential Office. In many European countries – Germany, Switzerland, and Slovakia for example – this gesture is illegal because of its association with WWII. Elon Musk, a strong financial supporter of the MAGA campaign and co-leader of Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency, is arguably one of the biggest faces of the second Trump term and has not yet made any official statements to refute claims that his gesture on the 20 was the Nazi salute. Much of the current internet controversy surrounding Musk’s gesture stems from American fears of what this could mean for the United States in the foreign policy arena. When the Crier spoke with Neil Levesque, Director of the New Hampshire Institute of Politics, on this subject, Levesque said that he sees this situation as minor compared to other things coming from the Trump Administration, especially in terms of what is affecting foreign policy. However, he also shared his belief that as a figure in the public sphere, Musk has a duty to explain himself: “I think he has a huge impact, he owns Twitter (X)…he made a gesture, and he’s not disavowing it – in some ways you own it when you don’t disavow it”.
As the debate around Musk’s intentions continues, the billionaire has acknowledged the Hitler salute accusations with a string of Nazi-themed puns posted to X, the social media platform of which he owns and leads a following of over 200 million.
Saint Anselm’s Jonathan Lupo, an English and Communication professor at the College, stated, “The media has a role to inform, and to provide historical and political context for the public to understand why this gesture is considered offensive. However, because of the multiplicity of news outlets as well as the rise in partisan media (especially circulating through social media feeds), there are many ways this incident could be framed that would minimize its importance and even flatten the history of the gesture itself.”
Posts such as, “Don’t say Hess to Nazi accusations… bet you did Nazi that coming!” uploaded by Musk to X on January 23, many of which reference prominent Nazi names, have fostered fears of minimization of this gesture across the internet. Uploaded just four days before Holocaust Remembrance Day, puns were not the only comments Musk shared on X following his problematic gestures. His attempt to make a joke out of the salute contention was accompanied by many reposts on X of other public figures gesturing what appears to be the same salute, a repost of Benjamin Netanyahu calling him a friend to Israel, and another of his own posts which stated, “The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is sooo tired.”
Regarding Musk’s gesture itself, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) came to his defense on X, writing, “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-Defamation League is a group which calls itself a global leader on a mission to “stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all,” who have now rescinded their support for Elon after seeing his Nazi themed posts. John Greenblatt, the Executive Director of the ADL, wrote that Musk’s puns were “inappropriate and offensive” just hours after he uploaded them to X.