If he meant it to be a nazi salute, why did he do it in conjunction with saying "I give my heart to you"?

Currently on TV is a WW2 documentary narrated by Tom Hanks. It's pretty good, with significant coverage of nazis. I recommend watching it. I'm a bit of a history wonk, and have read extensively about WW2. I'm afraid I don't see any parallels between the nazis and Musk.

> If he meant it to be a nazi salute, why did he do it in conjunction with saying "I give my heart to you"?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plausible_deniability

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Schrodingers...

Here's what Musk actually does when he intends that gesture: https://www.reddit.com/r/centrist/comments/1i8ajx0/video_of_...

And here's what this one looked like: https://www.reddit.com/r/gifs/comments/1i6par1/elon_musk_vs_...

Go on - would you give the latter link's "my heart goes out to you" gesture publicly at, say, work, or outside a synagogue?

And responding to the backlash by posting Nazi-related puns seems like a bad way of clearing your name or trying to distance yourself from the accusation.

He's done "I give my heart to you" on video, too, and it looks nothing like the nazi salute that he clearly did at the inauguration, twice, in celebration of the victory of far-right populist politics in the USA.

The rhetorical parallels between Musk, his affiliates, and the nazis should be clear to anyone with remedial knowledge of history, let alone someone who calls themselves a wonk: scapegoating racial outgroups isn't a subtle strategy and Musk's pursuit of the strategy is not subtle.

WW2 is the end of nazi politics, not the beginning. In the unlikely case that you missed the parallels in good faith, I recommend the Richard Evans books to learn about the beginning and middle of the nazi movement.

That's because he was in a manic moment, and all his emotions and physical movements were exaggerated... This wasn't a calm investor presentation.

I suppose the mania caused his twitter posts and white house politics as well? No, he meant it all.

None of his twitter posts or white house politics show him pushing nazi ideology.

Wild people are still defending and downplaying the "weird gesture." Some people just can't be convinced, even with their own eyeballs.

If anyone doesn't think what Musk did on stage was an offensive Nazi salute, do this: Watch it over and over, memorize the exact configuration and motion of the hand and arm, the speed of the thrust forward. Practice it in front of a mirror so it looks exactly like what Musk did. Then go into work and do it in front of your manger. Or in front of an older family member. See what they say.

Wild that people are still trying to insist that he did a salute. Some people just can't be convinced, even with their own eyeballs.

Like seriously I do not understand the mentality of people who see a nazi salute. I didn't see it when I watched it live and only some hours later did I see people start insisting he did a salute and I was just laughing at them, but this has spread so far it's gotten silly at this point. It's become an online meme that you roll your eyes at whenever people start insisting again that Musk is a nazi.

He was extremely happy and riled up throughout the speech at the most manic I've ever seen him (and Musk can be very manic). All his physical motions were exaggerated. He was giddy as can be. He then thanked the crowd with as much muscle as he could muster, and then turned around and thanked the crowd behind him as well. Just go watch it, not the 10 seconds, the whole thing.

"Doesn't look like anything to me."

Congrats, you baited me into watching the video again. Definitely a nazi salute. Twice. Crisp enough to identify as a nazi salute even if the context hadn't been a far-right industrialist celebrating a far-right victory. But that was the context, giving us two layers of unambiguity.

That's entirely because you have a bias that's set in your head that doesn't let you see anything else. You think he's a white supremacist so you see white supremacy.

There may be dumber thoughts out there than thinking that Elon Musk clearly meant to publicly declare his support for the German Nazi regime that night, but I really can't think of any.

I can: thinking that a far-right industrialist at a far-right victory celebration making a far-right hand gesture, with perfect form, in duplicate, didn't mean it.

Well you can start by correcting the point that it was a far-right victory celebration or that a far-right guesture was made.

Why would I correct myself? I'm already correct on both counts.

Such highly-public but deniable signals of support are actually a very, very common tactic of extremist movements.

But at the end of the day you know what you saw. Reflects very poorly.

Citation please.

What about trying really, really hard to believe that a guy with a Nazi tattoo on his chest didn't know it was a Nazi tattoo?

You know we forced that guy to withdraw his candidacy, right?

After it came out that he might have raped someone.

There were a lot of people on the left noting that a totenkopf was a big red flag warning of others lurking. The centrist consultants tried to push past it, as they often do, and that's one of the big issues I have with the Dem establishment.

Meanwhile, the Republicans elected and continue to rabidly support a court adjudicated actual rapist (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/07/19/trump-car...) to the Presidency, who appointed someone with similarly questionable tattoos to be the SecDef (https://www.npr.org/2024/11/14/nx-s1-5191413/peter-hegseths-...). I think I'm comfortable with the contrast.

That's insane revisionism. The center Democrats do not support the progressive wing of the party. The DSA types were all in on him and willing to look past just about everything. It wasn't until the actual rape allegations that Bernie Sanders withdrew his endorsement.

> Meanwhile, the Republicans...

Meanwhile, whataboutism.

So, there is little question about the type of gestures that Musk made, but I'm deeply curious about where it was directed.

Because we who read history all know that the "Nazi salute" or even the very American "Bellamy salute", and the Roman salutes before them, were directed to the leader, or a flag. And the Nazis in conjunction with saying "hail" to their leader. So far, so good?

But Musk was standing at a podium and looking out upon a crowd of people...voters...delegates... and he did not, in my view, try and face President Trump, or any leader standing at another podium, when he directed his salute outwards from the podium: outwards toward the crowd, opposite the camera angle.

So if Musk was not saluting President Trump: was he saluting a flag? Or the citizens? Because if he was saluting the citizens in this way, it gives a very, very different interpretation to the entire gesture, and if he was not saluting the president, or some leader, I do not see how this could be interpreted in the same way as the traditional salute of any type.

If you image search "hitler salute" you get 30 examples of Hitler saluting crowds. This argument is complete trash.

My father is 90 years old, so I asked him if he or his classmates said the Pledge of Allegiance, and he said of course they did.

I asked whether he had seen any of them making the Bellamy Salute, but he said no. I suppose he was too young to see it. Hail Caesar.

Caesar has been dead for 2000 years. The Bellamy Salute has been dead for 80. It's the Hitler salute now. Even your 90 year old father got the memo. Elon was not confused.

This whole comment chain is so baffling to me. HN is relatively intelligent, but we have people here seriously believing Musk did a Nazi salute on stage and that he's an actual Nazi. I don't know what to make of it.

I have to imagine it's motivated reasoning, because of the people who say it was a Nazi salute, approximately 100% of them already hated the guy. I've seen no one suddenly swayed. Fwiw I have no strong feelings about Musk either way, but to my eyes he is obviously not a Nazi.

Then your eyes are excellent at ignoring everything he said in the last 4 years on Twitter and did last year in the white house. Not to mention the salute itself. Or themself -- there were two, back to back, in case you missed the first one.

I have assessed your post history and it is literally 100% political argumentation, which aligns with my biases about what kind of people would write this sort of comment. That is not what HN is for.

You didn't even read the first page. Motivated vision strikes again.