“Elon Musk went from being the Henry Ford of this generation to being the Henry Ford of this generation.” — seen somewhere on Reddit
Granted, Ford actually built stuff and was a real engineer, but the whole “famous-car-mogul-turned-Nazi” narrative certainly could apply here given the response to Musk’s remarkably poor choice to thump his chest and then emphatically extend his right arm into the air as though the Führer himself was driving by in a motorcade circa 1940. Twice.
This occurred at the Inauguration festivities for President Trump on Jan. 20. (It’s important to note: watch the video of this salute. Don’t just look at the screenshot)
Why Musk chose to do so is anyone’s guess. He hasn’t offered much in response to the fervor over the Führer salute: “Frankly, they need better dirty tricks. The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is sooo tired,” was his post on X. No apology, no denial, and certainly no acknowledgement of how it was received by an extremely wide swath of people, including former ADL National Director Abe Foxman, who had this to say: “Elon Musk may be the world’s richest man but that does not excuse his thanking the Trump supporters with a Heil Hitler Nazi salute. [In] addition to supporting Germany’s neo-Nazi party in the next elections it is a very disconcerting image.”
Interestingly, Foxman’s statement (which also referenced Musk’s recent, convivial chat with Germany’s far-right party AfD candidate Alice Weidel) is quite a departure from the official line of the organization he once helmed. From the ADL’s official X account: “It seems that Elon Musk made an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute,” the Anti-Defamation League wrote Monday in a statement on Musk’s own social media platform X, referring to Musk’s outstretched-arm movement that came as he was thanking his supporters… In this moment, all sides should give one another a bit of grace, perhaps even the benefit of the doubt, and take a breath. This is a new beginning.”
Multiple organizations, including the Jewish Telegraph Agency and the Times of Israel, have reached out for clarification and more explanation for the ADL’s puzzling statement and have not received a response.
“The ADL also declined to elaborate on its statement or explain how it was crafted in response to inquiries from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency,” reads an article in the Times of Israel published on Jan. 22. “But in its symbolic pardon of a billionaire who had enthusiastically bankrolled Trump’s campaign, it appeared to contradict its own definition of a Nazi salute, which states that the gesture “consists of raising an outstretched right arm with the palm down.”
It’s puzzling that the ADL would give Musk such a pass in this instance, and the fact that they have yet to explain why is certainly problematic.
Meanwhile, it’s not unfair to acknowledge that the response to Musk’s activity seems to have also drowned out other virulently antisemitic activities in the United States — and across the world — occurring nearly simultaneously to the events of the Inauguration.
At Columbia University in New York City — an epicenter of so-called anti-Israel and antisemitic activity since just hours after the Hamas terror attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 — the spring semester kicked off with more of the same yesterday. According to reports, several students wearing Keffiyehs to mask their identities, stormed into an Israeli history class, filming themselves disrupting the proceedings and passing out literal death threats.
Predictably, responses have formed across political party lines. Chatter from public figures on the Left — such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) — have been quick to single out Musk’s sieg heil salute.
“If you’re cool and want to defend the ‘Sieg Heils’ and the Nazi salutes … whatever you want to do, that’s on you,” she said via a live video she broadcast from her Instagram page. “I’m on the opposite side of that. I’m not with the Nazis.” No response as of yet regarding what occurred on Columbia’s campus.
On the other side of the aisle, Senator Chris Murphy’s (D-Conn.) questioning of Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) — during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to be the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations — had her flat-out denying what we all saw while openly admitting she didn’t witness it at all.
“No, Elon Musk did not do those salutes,” Stefanik said, as reported by Fox News. “I was not at the rally, but I can tell you, I’ve been at many rallies with Elon Musk, who loves to cheer when President Trump says, ‘We need to send, you know, our U.S. space program to Mars,’ Elon Musk is a visionary. I’m looking forward to his work in DOGE,” the Department of Government Efficiency.” She also has yet to respond to what occurred at Columbia, however Stefanik has been very vocal regarding antisemitism on college campuses since the Hamas terror attack.
The big takeaway here remains this: Jews have become an enormous political football in the United States dating back almost a decade. Yet antisemitism knows no specific political party here.
Musk made a specific choice. And then did again. Many on the Right appear to be willing to infantilize him or wave it away as some sort of autistic “tick.” WHY he did it is certainly not clear, but it was a deliberate choice to do so. And honestly, his intent doesn’t really matter — the impact of that choice is what does. Holding him accountable for an actual thing he *did* is an absolutely understandable and valid response.
Those attacking Jewish students on college campuses — or burning down a Jewish preschool in Sydney, Australia, and spray painting “Kill the Jews” on a nearby wall (as occurred on Jan. 21) — need to be held fully accountable. Infantilizing their actions or dismissing their culpability is abhorrent as well.
What’s also really insulting is the idea that any of us should be looking at these actions through our individual political ideological lenses. Antisemitism exists completely across the political spectrum, and it’s the most consistent, actual proof point of the horseshoe theory in existence. When I talk about antisemitism, I’m talking about acts of antisemitism. If Elon saved a Jewish child from a burning building one day, and then tossed another one into a fire the next, it’s perfectly acceptable to hold him accountable for that latter act. The two acts do not cancel each other out. If AOC says she’s “on the opposite side of the Nazis” on one day and then amplifies antisemitic rhetoric on another, it’s perfectly acceptable to hold her accountable for the latter, too.
All of these acts literally feed each other. If I see it, I don’t care who you align with politically; I’m coming for you.
Elon’s salute — whether or not he professes to like Jews, demands hostage releases, or tours death camps — had real impacts, not the least of which was further emboldening an already foaming-at-the-mouth neo-Nazi audience sprinkled across the nation who also witnessed Trump pardon some of their beloved leaders yesterday.
Wired Magazine collected several examples of such in an article published on Jan. 20:
- “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 FUCKING 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 (holocaust denier), 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.”
To paraphrase Andrew Gillum from his debate with Ron DeSantis during the Florida gubernatorial debate in 2018: I’m not saying Elon Musk is a neo-Nazi. I’m simply saying the neo-Nazis believe he’s a neo-Nazi.
It may be true that neither Elon Musk nor AOC are actual neo-Nazis. But when it comes to increasing the temperature of rhetoric against Jews, they’re certainly not helping us out, either.
