By Talia Mullin / Original to ScheerPost
Billionaires including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google CEO Sundar Pinchai, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk were seated in front of Trump’s cabinet picks during his inauguration ceremony. According to the Guardian, this seating arrangement was not planned ahead of time and came as a result of the ceremony being moved indoors, although the moguls were meant to be on the dais outside as well. For many, this corroborated suspicions of an American oligarchy and, surely, the optics were there.
Regardless of the intention behind having these tech giants so closely positioned with the incoming president, there was one moment at a celebration following the inauguration that has sparked fierce debate. As head of the newly founded Department of Governmental Efficiency (DOGE) Elon Musk gave a short speech that lacked content — other than cries of victory and fantasies about planting the American flag on Mars — during which he made a motion that greatly resembled a Nazi salute. Not once, but twice.
The controversial gestures in the first 10 seconds of this clip from The Telegraph have been cut from this video from Fox where his entire speech is available to watch.
Kate Connolly of the Guardian reports that Michel Friedman, former deputy chair of the Central Council of Jews in Germany and a descendant of a family of Polish Jews who barely survived in the Holocaust, was troubled by Musk’s use of the Nazi “Heil Hitler.”
Connolly wrote:
“Charlotte Knobloch, the president of the Jewish community in Munich and Upper Bavaria, described the gesture as ‘highly disconcerting.’ But she said it was not as significant as Musk’s recent attempts to meddle in German politics, where he has endorsed the far-right Alternative für Deutschland ahead of next month’s federal election.”
Various members of the AfD party have been fined or reprimanded for using Nazi slogans and trivializing the Holocaust.
Social media defenders cited his comment, “My heart goes out to you,” added after the two gestures, as means to prove that this was his intent, although one usually offers something with a palm facing upwards.
Musk has said that he is diagnosed with autism. Many online commenters coming to Musk’s defense are saying that his neurodivergence can cause his excited movements to look strange and that the style of his giving his heart to the audience was accidental. Others disagree, saying that this is not a valid excuse. Some say the motion was a Roman salute.
George Wright of BBC News wrote:
“Andrea Stroppa, a confidant of Musk who has connected him with far-right Italian PM Giorgia Meloni, was reported by Italian media to have posted the clip of Musk with the caption: ‘Roman Empire is back starting from 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 “that gesture, which some mistook for a Nazi salute, is simply Elon, who has autism, expressing his feelings by saying, ‘I want to give my heart to you.'”
One of the most shocking defenses came from the Anti-Defamation League — the same group that created the collection of anti-semitic offenses of the AfD party that Musk endorsed. The organization posted:
In response, podcaster and activist, Matt Bernstein, wrote in a post to his Instagram story: “pretty unbelievable that groups like @adl_national spent 15 months calling me (a jew) “antisemitic” for so much as whispering that israel should stop bombing children but when their favorite billionaire overlord flashes a n•azi symbol it’s time to “give him the benefit of the doubt” man whatever.”
Bernstein’s comment has been echoed by many other Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok users who find the ADL’s blatant dismissal of Musk’s questionable action as not only extremely disappointing but a clear demonstration of how arbitrarily accusations of antisemitism were leveled against pro-Palestinian protesters.
Other organizations including Jewish Voice for Peace joined the conversation, mentioning Musk’s 2023 feud with the ADL after they raised concerns about antisemitism on the X platform. JVP points out that the ADL’s unwillingness to question Musk’s actions but readiness to condemn protesters calling for the end to what has been called a plausible genocide is representative of their true intention which is to absolve Israel of any accountability under the guise of concern for Jewish safety.
However, other Zionist thinkers such as journalist Eve Barlow see the accusations against Musk as dangerous to Jewish safety for other reasons.
So, did our newly appointed head of the Department of Government Efficiency, or “first buddy,” intentionally do a Nazi salute while celebrating the presidential inauguration? Musk himself would likely never admit to that being his intention, but he has not exactly said that it was absolutely not that either. Instead, he responded to the ADL saying, “Thanks guys 😂” and took to X saying Hitler accusations were “tired:”
Additionally, many right-wing neo-Nazi groups and individuals have celebrated the so-called “awkward gesture.” According to France 24, Christopher Pohlhaus, leader of neo-Nazi group, Blood Tribe, shared a video edit to Telegram showing a side-by-side of masked group members carrying swastika flags doing the motion lined up with Musk’s at the rally. Followers reacted with enthusiasm and further references to the Nazi regime.
Right-wing political pundit, Nick Fuentes, commented, “That was a straight up, like, ‘Sieg Heil,’ like, loving Hitler energy … That was like a straight-up, with intensity Roman salute.” Fuentes is known by the left for his white supremacist and antisemitic positions and at one point likened the murder and cremation of those in Holocaust death camps to cookies being baked in an oven.
As of Jan. 23, 2025, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, came to Musk’s defense on X, saying he was being falsely smeared. Netanyahu, who currently has arrest warrants issued against him from the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity and war crimes, thanked Musk for his unwavering support of Israel’s right to self-defense.
Musk took to X following Netanyahu’s defense of Israel’s “great friend,” to share the following:
“Hess” as in Rudolf Hess, Deputy Fürher to Adolf Hitler. “Goebbles” in reference to Joseph Goebbles, the Nazi minister of propaganda. “Göring” as in Hermann Göring, the second most powerful official Nazi in Germany. “Himmler” in reference to SS chief Heinrich Himmler, architect of the “Final Solution.” Musk’s last reference of “Nazi” does not need further explanation.
Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, which earlier said the motion was not a Nazi salute, was unhappy with Musk’s play on words. He wrote:
“We’ve said it hundreds of times before and we will say it again: the Holocaust was a singularly evil event, and it is inappropriate and offensive to make light of it.
@elonmusk, the Holocaust is not a joke.”
We may never get a clear answer about what Elon Musk’s intention was behind the salute, yet, reactions on both the far left and right of the political spectrum seem to be united in their understanding of his intent to perform the Nazi salute. Those who find themselves somewhere along the center seem stuck in an insoluble debate about the awkward giving of the first buddy’s heart to the crowd; his right-wing beliefs forgotten and his neurodivergence taking center stage instead.
Please share this story and help us grow our network!
Editor’s Note: At a moment when the once vaunted model of responsible journalism is overwhelmingly the play thing of self-serving billionaires and their corporate scribes, alternatives of integrity are desperately needed, and ScheerPost is one of them. Please support our independent journalism by contributing to our online donation platform, Network for Good, or send a check to our new PO Box. We can’t thank you enough, and promise to keep bringing you this kind of vital news.
You can also make a donation to our PayPal or subscribe to our Patreon.