Elon Musk appears to give Nazi salute at Trump Rally


Elon Musk gave what appeared to be Nazi salutes at a rally held at Capitol One Arena on Monday after Donald Trump’s inauguration in Washington, D.C. And whatever Musk’s intent with the salutes, Americans on social media are extremely uncomfortable while discussing what could. means for the future of the country.

“This really mattered. And I just want to say thank you for making it happen,” Musk said about Trump’s re-election to a crowd of supporters.

The billionaire placed his right hand on his chest before extending his arm with his fingers fully extended. Musk then turned and waved again to the crowd behind him. After greetings, Musk told the crowd: “My heart goes out to you. It is thanks to you that the future of civilization is assured.”

News camera capture the greeting from a couple of anglesincluding one more to the right of Musk, which was broadcast online by Reuters. The salute was unmistakably similar to those used by the Nazis in the 1930s and 40s.

Mainstream news outlets seem hesitant to describe the salute as something that is clearly associated with Nazism. As NBC News said: “Musk forcefully touched his heart, before raising his hand and waving to supporters.”

The New York Times liveblog didn’t mention Musk’s greeting, instead noting that he, “spoke briefly at the rally at Capital One Arena and promised to take DOGE, his cost-cutting effort,” to Mars.

Getty Images photo shows a caption on their website that read“Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk gesture while speaking during the inaugural parade at Capitol One Arena, in Washington, DC, on January 20, 2025.”

The reaction online appeared to be one of complete shock with simple tweets reading “what?” being very common. Others sarcastically referred to Musk’s greetings as “thin.”

Some people have referred to the gesture as a “Roman salute,” which actually predates the Nazi era. But since the 1940s, the gesture has become fully associated with the Nazis, who built a fascist dictatorship that killed 6 million Jews during the Holocaust.

Philip Bump of the Washington Post noted Bluesky that anyone trying to defend Musk’s salutes as “Roman salutes” and not necessarily associated with Nazis are not arguing in good faith.

“It was a Roman salute” is an updated version of “actually, Buddhists also used swastikas.” If you used it after 1945, you know well that the association has changed.

– Philip Bump (@pbump.com) January 20, 2025 at 12:56 p.m

Musk himself shared his full video short speech on X, even as other users focused only on Nazi salutes.

Obviously people across social media were disturbed by what they see as the Trump administration’s embrace of fascism. But now that Musk has saluted the worst regime of the 20th century, vulnerable people will be even more worried about how bad things will get in the days, weeks and months ahead.

Extremists online celebrated Musk’s greetings, clearly understanding them to be Nazi gestures.

Even some extremists still refer to it as a “Roman salute” while linking it to other neo-Nazi moments.

But a handful of Musk’s fans insisted the billionaire wasn’t actually giving a Nazi salute, with far-right influencer Ian Miles Cheong writing that journalist Aaron Rupar had somehow edited the clip in a misleading way. It is not clear what Cheong seems to mean, since everyone can see the greetings for themselves.

Gizmodo attempted to reach Musk’s companies Tesla and X for comment, but did not immediately receive a response. We will update this post if we hear about it.





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