# Elon Musk did the Nazi salute on live TV to prove he could Source: https://open.substack.com/pub/bloodinthemachine/p/elon-musk-did-a-nazi-salute-on-live?r=6d366 ## Summary Musk's Nazi-style salute at the inauguration is presented as a sign that tech oligarchs have consolidated power over media and public opinion, and the salute's exact meaning is beside the point. The text says Musk, who currently supports Germany's AfD party, made a gesture any viewer would read as a Nazi salute, and that news outlets were likely to soften or edit it out. The text notes that four of the five richest men, worth over $1 trillion, sat in the front row, including Zuckerberg, Pichai and Bezos. Astra Taylor is cited as saying that opposition outrage will ultimately amount to little. ## Article Is Elon Musk a Nazi? Did the gesture that he performed in front of millions technically adhere to the standard performance of a Sieg Heil, or a Hitler salute, or a Nazi salute? Could this have been an “awkward” gesture of heartfelt enthusiasm? Did you know that the provenance of said salute was actually Roman, and first adopted by the French, then the fascists, then the Nazis, and so its historicity is really quite complex? None of these questions matter. What matters is that the actual Nazis are cheering. What matters is that Musk, who is currently supporting Germany’s Nazi-sympathizing AfD party, went on the world’s biggest stage and made a gesture any teenager who has seen a movie about World War II knew would be interpreted as a Nazi salute. What matters is that Musk, like Trump before him, knows or intuits that the media is incapable of processing such a gesture when it is made by such an “important” man. He knows or intuits that the New York Times will run headlines like and that news channels will do their best to align their presentations to the most sympathetic interpretation of what occurred, to the point of editing out the salute entirely when they run it in their broadcasts. He knows this because for now, Elon Musk and his cohort have won. The inauguration was one long festival of grotesqueries — a parade of tech oligarchs and sore winners grousing about American decline while launching meme coins and setting about dismantling the regulatory state. Four of the five richest men in the world, worth over $1 trillion, beaming in the front row, the fifth already firmly in Trump’s pocket. “If he loses, I’m fucked,” Musk famously told Tucker Carlson, perhaps alluding to the many lawsuits and legal troubles he was facing. But Trump did not lose, and now Musk has never been more unfucked in his life. He has triumphed, and so who knows, and who cares? He can go on national television and give a Nazi salute and the national press will collapse in on itself, second-guessing, trying to play fair, even cowering preemptively from reporting on the truth of the moment at all. The legacy media is dead, Musk is constantly saying on the massive platform he owns, send people links to X so they can see what’s really going on. What at first felt pathetic now appears to be an entirely successful effort to construct a novel vehicle for propaganda that obviates the need to consider the legacy press at all. In turn, a legacy press bled dry by big tech usurping its advertising revenue and dictating the terms of distribution, perhaps recognizing its deep vulnerability, responds by granting Musk the benefit of the doubt. My former colleague Matt Pearce has written eloquently about “journalism’s fight for survival in a postliterate democracy” and we are observing the effects of that fight going badly in real time right now. That the men and men in charge of the companies most responsible for destroying journalism—Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Google’s Sundar Picchai, and Musk himself—were in the front row of the inauguration, clapping for Trump, on the same day Musk made his salute, is telling. As far as they are concerned, they have won. Mark Zuckerberg won’t take any more liberal scolding, he’s firing fact-checkers and moderators, closing down his DEI programs, and opening his platform up for more hate speech, just like Musk did at Twitter, now X. Google’s AI can generate as much toxic slop as it wants, it’s hard to see any Trump agency cracking down if it instructs someone to eat a poisonous mushroom. And Jeff Bezos, the fourth tech titan in the front row seats, can tell his newspapers to spike op-eds supporting the other party, or editorial cartoons criticizing the big man. The tech oligarchy is here, and so content in their strangulation of the media that they can be unashamed in their fealty. They can cheer in public and give Nazi salutes and what of it. Their institutional capture is complete. Even the Anti-defamation League will look at a Sieg Heil and say, “that’s fine.” Because the tech oligarchs know, from last go round, that, as Astra Taylor has pointed out, the opposition becoming outraged about their offenses will ultimately amount to little. There is no longer any power to be found in yelling, or working the refs, or appealing to norms, if there was any to begin with. Our protests online will be filed away into the nooks of the sprawling platforms they own. Is Elon Musk a card-carrying Nazi? It doesn’t matter. The salute was a juvenile display of power, one that aptly reflects the stature of the fully ascended tech oligarchy. Musk is the richest man in the world, he is the first buddy; he can transcend any norm, any offense, watch him. Like Trump before him, he can tell everyone to eat shit, and while the media wonders if he meant it, he’s already pointing his attention and posts and cannon of obscene wealth in another direction. He owns the platform that dictates his own reality. He barely had to defend himself, he barely denied it. He’ll probably do it again. Who’s going to stop him? ## Comments **timdaub.eth**: A project like Kiwi, if we stay to true our values, could stop him **@macbudkowski**: I still refuse this frame: "(...) made a gesture any teenager who has seen a movie about World War II knew would be interpreted as a Nazi salute." I watched many movies about World War II, read a few books, I've even heard WWII stories from my grandparents who saw it with their own eyes. And this is not the first interpretation that came to my head. I don't believe he intended to do a Nazi salute, but I do believe that Elon made a mistake by doing a gesture that can be interpreted this way, because now all the media machine is running full speed to frame him as a Nazi to reinforce their narrative that Trump et consortes is basically Hitler & NSDAP. **timdaub.eth**: > I still refuse this frame: "(...) made a gesture any teenager who has seen a movie about World War II knew would be interpreted as a Nazi salute." > I watched many movies about World War II, read a few books, I've even heard WWII stories from my grandparents who saw it with their own eyes. And this is not the first interpretation that came to my head. But do you agree that any teenager who saw it and a WWII movie will say that it was a Nazi salute? I saw a friend‘s social media feed and everyone saw the gesture like this **@macbudkowski**: With the right nudge ("Do you think it is a Nazi salute?"), I think most of them will agree it was it. Without the nudge, I think most of them won't see anything wrong about it. At least I didn't even notice it resembles a Nazi salute before watching a CNN clip with it, and neither did my friends in a groupchat :) **timdaub.eth**: Have you watched the actual act of him doing it? He first does the gesture once and he does it with such intensity that he also makes a sound from moving himself. He then says "my heart goes out to you," as if it was to explain afterwards what he just did. And then he doubles down on the gesture towards Trump. Again, I have said this before. With elegance and care he could have said "my heart goes out to you," then do the gesture and I think he would have left much fewer in-definition behind. It was a 3 minute speech. It was a peak of his career, so he obviously had prepared for what to say there. It's crazy to assume/claim that he hasn't. He's not a 13yo doing his first presentation at school. It's actually hard to not insult your basic judgement capability of people here if you don't see this for what it was. > Without the nudge, I think most of them won't see anything wrong about it. This is just not factual and it is an extraordinary claim, and you know what this means. The burden is on your to prove it. The entire internet, everyone has quoted this one thing about the inauguration. This was the entire takeaway from that stream. All of social media was basically just that image yesterday. To say that this image that he created rests on the fact that someone is a master of "nudging," where do you take this idea? You'd have to show that this broad level of psyopping people has happened before with the same technique. You'd also have to show that "just the nudge" would suffice to counter-steer the entire narrative. **@macbudkowski**: Yes, I watched the whole speech. And tbh it was a very mid and pretty chaotic speech compared to his Tesla and SpaceX presentations. So either he was stressed, buzzing with energy too much or not prepared enough. Could be even all three. So yeah it's easy to say afterwards what he could have done and I agree that your scenario would be much better. But given his emotional state plus a track record of doing awkward things and saying stupid things on Twitter exactly like a 13 yo, I give him the benefit of a doubt. But let's even assume for a second that it was a Nazi salute. The first rule of investigation is looking for a motive. Do you think he actually wanted to support Nazi people? Or he hates jews? Or what? Why would he do it? Re: nudge, what I mean is that there are things that "can't be unseen" once someone gives you a mental lens to interpret it. From "Andreesseen's head looks like an egg", through "Hidden arrow in FedEx logo" up to "Charbonneau post is just a Solana psyop". And I think the same thing happened here - we got a lens that interpreted Musk's actions in a certain way. And since his move DID resemble Nazi salute you don't need psyop for that. That being said, can't speak about teenagers but what I know for sure is that before we saw the media materials, neither I nor any of my friends even mentioned it could be a Nazi salute, and we were watching the speech a few minutes after it went out. **@naomiii**: Some people would say, he just wants attention and well.. as the article suggests, show that he can get away with these things. If that is true I think it's a bit worrisome for the levels of decency in our world (maybe that is something we should strive for) I mean, I too watched it and there wasn't really much doubt in my mind what this gesture was about. Sure, I might be hypersensitive because of growing up in Germany, but then again... the fact that my entire social feed that is mostly non-Germans - was discussing this, speaks against that. Regarding motive, who knows. He might indeed sympathize with some Nazi ideals.. Also it's not really clear what constitutes Nazi ideas these days when people throw the term around quite inflationary. **timdaub.eth**: > But let's even assume for a second that it was a Nazi salute. The first rule of investigation is looking for a motive. Do you think he actually wanted to support Nazi people? Or he hates jews? Or what? Why would he do it? I believe I have already answered this yesterday: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories?index=0x678eb65f3f28db240e6299f945ef7a22dd9dea6908623782d82721331334917e1d7bfd9f#0x678f633568d45e39ae545796685be46151d4bfa1f86fcf46852c46c29675316cfeeb6e72 and as the article clearly states, there are a number of other good rational reasons why he might have done it. Independent of everything, yesterday a friend and I discussed for a while why the German Tagesschau hasn't featured his gesture as the top story. They didn't even mention it. There was no coverage at all. And they're usually the first ones to point out something negative about Elon. So what's going on here? Well, the above posted story provides AN explanation. **@macbudkowski**: I think I missed your yesterday's comment, thanks for sharing. If we go with your interpretation then I agree that this gesture plays well into MAGA movement. I don't think I agree with the author's interpretation of a balanced NYT take on this gesture, though. I got to say I am surprised by that given NYT's track record, but I don't think they did it because it'd be too scary to admit he did it on purpose. I think they did it because Musk did a lot of dumb shit with big reprecusions in the past including 'taking Tesla private at $420', accusing a diver who wanted to save Thai kids of being a pedophile, saying that coronavirus panic is dumb and so on. **@macbudkowski**: And all that btw makes him more akin to Trump where years of controversies makes you basically bulletproof. People just say "Oh, another stupid thing from Elon, whatever" and go back to their things in a few days. Whereas if Sundar or Tim Cook did that, it could have been much more severe for their reputation