Right-Wing Extremists Stir Controversy Over Musk's Straight-Arm Salute
Right-wing extremists, white nationalists, and neo-Nazis are cheering a disturbing gesture by the world's richest man.
At a post-inauguration event on Monday, Elon Musk welcomed Donald Trump's fans with a Roman salute, first placing his palm to his breast and then extending a stiff right arm toward the crowd, slightly elevated and palm down. It was not a one-off. He then repeated the move.
Musk's influence in the new administration is difficult to overstate. The billionaire spent hundreds of millions of dollars to get Trump elected and has spent much of the transition period advising Trump on his cabinet and new administration. Trump has appointed Musk to oversee the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, a quasi-governmental initiative to cut hundreds of billions of dollars in federal spending. In his inauguration speech, Trump also endorsed Musk's life goal of colonizing Mars as part of America's "manifest destiny."
Regardless of whether Musk, who was born in South Africa, intended the gesture as a "Sieg Heil" salute used by Adolf Hitler's followers during World War II, as some internet observers have speculated, radicals online reacted favorably to it.
Christopher Pohlhaus, the leader of the renowned neo-Nazi group Blood Tribe, shared a video of Musk's salute on Telegram with a lightning-bolt emoji (reminiscent of the Nazi SS) and the caption: "I don't care if this was a mistake. I'm going to relish my tears over it."
Another neo-Nazi leader, Christopher Hood, who formed the New England race-separatist outfit NSC-131, also tweeted the footage on Telegram with the emojis ⁉️ and 😁.
Andrew Torba founded Gab, a far-right Christian nationalist social media platform that pioneered AI-powered Nazi chatbots. He posted the video on his Instagram with the message, "Incredible things are already happening lmao."
Keith Woods, a far-right author characterized by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a "self-described ethno-nationalist and antisemite," posted the clip on X, commenting, "Ok, maybe woke is dead."
Thomas Sewell, an Australian neo-Nazi whose Telegram avatar is a photo of himself throwing a Roman salute, posted Musk's video, calling it a "Donald Trump White Power moment."
The Proud Boys Ohio chapter tweeted a clip of the Musk video to its Telegram channel, along with the words "Hail Trump!"
A chapter of the white supremacist group White Lives Matter expressed gratitude on Telegram, along with a photo of a banner drop the group had earlier carried out over a freeway overpass, reading: "Elon Musk Stop White Genocide." The Telegram caption said, "Thanks for (sometimes) hearing us, Elon. "The White Flame will rise again."
Alternative interpretations of the gesture are plausible. Musk is socially awkward, and he may have been stiffly trying to express gratitude to the audience for assisting in Trump's reelection. "My heart goes out to you," he added after performing the gesture a second time.
Musk has, however, associated himself with far-right groups in Europe, including the extreme German party AfD. After purchasing Twitter, which he rebranded X, he reinstated long-banned white supremacists on the platform in the name of free expression. And his X account is sometimes difficult to identify from far-right radicals. In late 2023, he embarked on a so-called "apology tour" to Israel after responding to a post on X about an antisemitic conspiracy theory with the phrase "the actual truth." He frequently posts Pepe frogs and other alt-right-related images and memes, and lately took on the handle "Kekius Maximus."