The tech tycoon says his detractors “need better dirty tricks” amid a furore over his gesture at Donald Trump’s inauguration
Billionaire Elon Musk, a close ally of US President Donald Trump, has brushed off allegations that he performed a Nazi salute when giving a speech at the inauguration on Monday.
In an article later that day, the Jerusalem Post inquired: “Did Elon Musk Sieg Heil at Trump’s inauguration?” The Israeli newspaper quoted local activist and academic Shai Davidai, who wrote on Instagram: “I don’t care who you are, doing a Nazi salute is never ok.”
The episode happened when the SpaceX and Tesla CEO was addressing Trump supporters at the Capital One Arena in Washington DC on Monday.
He proclaimed: “This was no ordinary victory. This was a fork in the road of human civilization!” The Tesla and SpaceX CEO insisted that unlike some other elections, the November 5 US presidential ballot “really mattered.”
The billionaire then thanked the audience “for making it happen,” placing his right hand over his heart and raising it upward at an angle, palm down and fingers held together. He repeated the gesture once again, turning to the spectators behind him.
Online commentators and many media outlets viewed the gesture as a Nazi salute.
Responding to a user’s post on X on Tuesday, who claimed the “salute hoax is just another part of the ‘dirty tricks campaign,’” Musk agreed, adding: “frankly, they need better dirty tricks.”
“The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is sooo tired,” he wrote.
In a post on X on Tuesday, the US-based Anti-Defamation League suggested Musk had “made an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute.” The non-profit organization noted that “people are on edge,” and urged all sides across the political spectrum to “give one another a bit of grace, perhaps even the benefit of the doubt, and take a breath.”
Some social media users have pointed out that other politicians, including prominent Democrats – Vice President Kamala Harris, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former President Barack Obama – have all made arm gestures in the past that could be interpreted the same way, but did not draw the same media scrutiny.
Other commentators have speculated that Musk’s stiff and jerky straight-arm gesture was attributable to Asperger’s syndrome, which the billionaire has said he has.
