Elon Musk sparked outrage by making a one-armed gesture during Donald Trump’s inauguration speech.
After thanking the crowd “for making this happen,” Musk placed his right hand over his heart and extended the same arm into the air. He then turned around and repeated the same action for the people sitting behind him.
Many on X, the social media platform he owns, likened the gesture to a Nazi salute.
In response, Musk posted to
Musk, the world’s richest man and close associate of President Trump, made this gesture while giving a speech at the Capital One Arena in Washington, DC.
“Thanks to you, my heart goes out,” the 53-year-old said after giving a second one-armed salute. “It is thanks to you that the future of civilization is secured.”
There was immediate backlash on social media.
Claire Aubin, a historian specializing in Nazism in the United States, said Musk’s actions were a “Sieg Heil,” or Nazi salute.
Addressing those who believe the gesture was an explicit reference to Nazis, she told
“Here’s a historian of fascism. It was a Nazi salute and a very militant salute,” said Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a history professor at New York University.
Andrea Stroppa, a close associate who linked Musk to far-right Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, posted a video of Musk with the caption “The Roman Empire began again with the Roman Salute,” Italian media reported.
The Roman salute was widely used in Italy by Benito Mussolini’s fascist party, and was later adopted by Adolf Hitler in Germany.
Stroppa later deleted his post, Italian media said. He later posted, “The gesture, which some people mistook as a Nazi salute, was simply Elon, who is autistic, expressing his feelings by saying ‘I want to give you my heart’.”
“That’s exactly what he delivered on the microphone: ELON HATE EXTREMISTS!”
The gesture comes as Musk’s politics shift increasingly to the right. He recently released statements supporting Germany’s far-right party AfD and Britain’s anti-immigration party Reform UK.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, attending the World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting in Davos, was asked a question comparing the salute to the Nazi salute, which is banned in Germany.
“We have freedom of speech in Europe and in Germany,” he said.
“…What we don’t accept is whether this supports far-right positions. And that’s what I want to reiterate.”
But some, including the Anti-Defamation League, an organization founded to combat anti-Semitism, defended Musk.
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Musk became one of Trump’s closest allies and was appointed to co-lead what the president called the Office of Government Effectiveness.
