Yes, Elon Musk Did a Nazi Salute. Yes, Nazis are the Baddies.

Don't let right-wing media, corporate news, and the ADL gaslight you. Elon Musk did a Nazi salute. He's simply following in the footsteps of Donald Trump by courting and rewarding racists in the base.

The first day of Donald Trump’s second presidency hasn’t even ended yet and Nazis are trending on X.

This time it isn’t due to Trump praising white supremacists who chanted Nazi slogans, such as “The Jews will not replace us!” Recall that Trump said there were “very fine people on both sides” who assembled in Charlottesville, including a Hitler sympathizer who killed anti-racist protestor Heather Heyer after he rammed his car into a crowd of peaceful protestors.

Upon hearing Trump’s non-condemnation, white supremacists in America realized he was their guy. This was made even more clear after Trump quoted Hitler several times, referring to immigrants as vermin who are “poisoning the blood” with “bad genes,” and promising to unleash the National Guard and military on “the enemy from within.” According to his own Chief of Staff, retired General John Kelly, Trump praised Hitler as a man “who did some good things.” Kelly also said Trump fits the definition of fascist and prefers a “dictator approach.” Trump even dined with young white nationalist leader and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes in 2021. To this day, Trump has refused to apologize for the dinner or condemn Fuentes because he is afraid it will alienate a part of his base.

The most influential and wealthy member of that base includes Elon Musk, the richest man on Earth, who poured nearly a quarter of a billion dollars into Trump’s campaign, bought a money-losing website to promote white supremacists and racist conspiracy theories, and according to Trump helped him win Pennsylvania with “vote counting computers.” The reason why a genocidal regime responsible for the deaths of 11 million people, including 6 million Jews, is on everyone’s mind on MLK Day is because Musk, the co-president, decided to unleash not one but two Sieg Heils at Trump’s inauguration party held at the Capitol One arena. In case you didn’t know, that was the Nazi salute which meant “Hail victory!” and was used as a greeting.

Although shocking, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that Musk did a Sieg Heil based on his recent comments, posts, and retweets. After all, his maternal grandparents were in the Nazi party in Canada and moved to South Africa because they admired the apartheid regime. I guess fascism runs in the family. Recently, Musk has gone all-in with Germany’s pro-Nazi AfD Party, which is so extreme that it was rejected by the far-right in France. He published an op-ed in a German paper endorsing a party whose members are currently under surveillance for suspected right-wing extremism. He just hosted a chat on X with the party’s candidate, Alice Weidel, who has embraced mass deportation of immigrants and said Hitler was a “communist,” which is strange considering he jailed communists and was a genocidal, Nazi dictator.

Ever since Musk took over X, pro-Nazi accounts have been both verified and flourished. Mush himself has shared some of this content. When Tucker Carlson interviewed a Nazi apologist who called Churchill the “chief villain” of WW2 and said the murder of Jews in camps was “humane,” Musk initially promoted the video and called it “very interesting” and “worth watching.” Musk has also gone to war with former ally, Nigel Farage, the far-right leader of the UK’s Reform Party who was one of the architects of Brexit. The conflict is over Tommy Robinson, a racist hooligan, who is currently in jail for repeating a libel against a 15-year-old refugee. Robinson has helped incite anti-Muslim hatred and riots the past summer thanks to social media. His influence and outreach grew after Musk reinstated his account on X. Robinson is too extreme even for Farage. Not for Musk, who tweeted in support of the violent criminal, asking, “Why is Tommy Robinson in a solitary confinement prison for telling the truth?”

This is about as unsubtle as it gets, folks. But, leave it to the right-wing hacks and corporate media to sanewash what we all saw with our own eyes. Just like they tried to gaslight us about Trump’s crowd size in 2017, conservative media jumped on the latest scandal and tried to spin it by saying Musk was simply doing the “Roman Salute.” First, that’s essentially a synonym for the Nazi salute. Second, there’s no historical record of Romans ever using that salute but we know it’s been used by fascists for the past century. Third, white supremacists and Nazis are celebrating Musk’s salute as a Nazi salute.

However, as Orwell told us in 1984, “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” Here’s how The Washington Post, the paper owned and ruined by billionaire Jeff Bezos, spun the controversy. Apparently, democracy dies with Nazi salutes.

Even worse, the ADL, which allegedly exists to combat antisemitism, bent the knee for Musk and sanewashed his obvious salute as an “awkward gesture in the moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute.” If Musk had worn a keffiyeh and waved a Palestinian flag, the ADL would have no doubt jumped on him as an anti-semite and hatemonger, but a Nazi salute by the world’s richest man is perfectly kosher now for the organization committed to combatting hatred and bigotry against Jews.

Just because America is sanitizing Nazis and white supremacists to cozy up to the world’s richest man and his co-president doesn’t mean you have to obey their directives, bend the knee, and stop believing your own eyes. As I was writing this article, Trump just announced he was pardoning the January 6th insurrectionists, including Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio. His racist and violent right-wing group was told by Trump to “stand back and stand by” at the 2020 Presidential debates when he was asked to condemn white supremacist groups. (He did not.) They understood the assignment and followed their leader’s command. Just like fascists in the past, Trump now has his army of brownshirts who can operate with impunity.

As I wrote earlier on BluSky, you can't shame MAGA. It's impossible to shame shameless people. Trust me on this. I go on TV and debate them often. They will continue to make excuses for Musk's Nazi salute and Trump pardoning his violent insurrectionists while claiming they are the party of security and law and order.

But remember this: there's a big world out there where the majority opposes fascists and dictators. The authoritarian minority only wins when it thoroughly exhausts, distracts, and depletes the majority of its hope, awareness, and voice. When you see Nazi lovers doing the Nazi salute, use that voice to call it out for what it is.