[sneak]

I have no extremely strong pro- or anti- Musk feelings, but the ADL (who seem to me to be the experts on antisemitism) say that’s not what that was.

https://x.com/ADL/status/1881474892022919403

There also doesn’t seem to be any corroborating data to suggest he’s a nazi. I’m all for calling a spade a spade if he is, but it seems that people are working backwards from the “I hate Musk” position rather than forwards from the facts.

[zwirbl]

The 'awkward gesture' take is a fun one.

"Sorry officer, I did not flip you off twice, that were both just very awkward gestures"

There is tons of data on how Musk became a far right supporter and sympathizer, like his support of UK racists and the German far right. You seem to still use X, you could just scroll through his posts there and try to not ignore the evidence you see with your own eyes

[try_the_bass]

Have you considered that perhaps the increasing levels of vitriol and outright hatred directed at him by the left might have had something to do with his rightward trend? They seem pretty correlated.

I struggle to see how doubling down on the hatred is going to convince anyone other than _already hateful_ people of the righteousness of your cause?

[phillipcarter]

Have you considered that doing a nazi salute, whether earnest or ironically earnest, is just not okay?

[try_the_bass]

No, it's not okay, and I'm not trying to justify it.

But you (and everyone else in this thread, with perhaps a few exceptions) hated him long before the salute, so to try to blame it on that is pretty disingenuous.

I think trying to justify your hatred of someone based on something the did after you started hating them is pretty "not okay", too, fwiw

[Philpax]

The ADL's current leadership appears to be ideologically aligned with Elon Musk for reasons unclear. Here's an article with other Jewish voices, including the former director of the ADL, emphatically stating that it was a Nazi salute: https://forward.com/fast-forward/690745/adl-elon-musk-sieg-h...

As for his other views, Wikipedia can speak to it better than I can: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Views_of_Elon_Musk#Race_and_wh...

[sneak]

> Musk later denied being antisemitic and described himself as a "pro-Semite".

So which is it? It seems wildly inconsistent to me to intentionally make a nazi salute but verbally deny being antisemitic. I don’t think someone like him would need to rely at all on plausible deniability, given that everyone already seems to hate him and he’s been granted immense power without having been elected to any position.

[lores]

It strikes me there's no particular reason a modern Nazi should hate Jews when there are plenty of other groups to be scapegoated, like immigrants or liberals. There was historical prejudice against Jews then, there is against others now. I can well see Musk loving the trappings of fascism, the hilarious fun of trolling as a Nazi, and having people pay attention to him, while not being directly antisemitic.

[toasteros]

You have to remember that fascism's application of othering is not logical, it's just a convenient method of gaining leverage. The Nazis targeted Jews because it was easy to weave a narrative about them, and because their population within Germany itself was so small that it was electorally inconsequential to victimise them. You see this with the Musk-Trump regime's position on trans people; trans people are not a threat to anyone, and are so few in number that you can easily weave a narrative about them and use it to push a more extreme agenda.

You are absolutely correct that modern Nazis are not really bothered by the Jews, but you have to remember that fascists just look for easy targets to hate.

Essentially, yeah, fine, he's not a card carrying member of the NSDAP. But he's a hateful individual pursuing a hateful agenda all the same, and he did the salute to signal to edgelords that he sees them.

[KaiserPro]

Forigner here, one who's family has been shaped on both sides by the nazis and lived through either bombing, or were active members of the resistance in occupied europe.

That was a Hitlergruß, no ifs no buts. More over it wasn't just the once.

Does it make him a nazi? no.

But one has to question why the fuck he thought it was a good idea.

He's terminally online, he knows exactly what it is. He's seen the same memes as us, and knows exactly what that gesture means. So why do it?

That is the far more concerning question.

But thats irrelevant as he appears to be gaining absolute control over the executive.

[Yoric]

I think we're forgetting something.

As far as I understand, most of the leaders of the historical NSDAP (the Nazi party) / the Nazi regime were not Nazis themselves, insofar as they did not believe in whatever was written in Mein Kampf. Nazism was just a mean to grab and hold power. The true believers were basically victims of a con.

So... I don't care whether Elon Musk is actually a Nazi. I do believe that he is willing to use Nazism as a lever, which makes him much more dangerous.

[diggan]

Probably some of the Nazi leaders may have been opportunists to varying degrees, but to say that most of the leaders were not hardcore Nazis is not accurate. Out of the various biographies and books I've read, they're were all aligned about racial supremacy, antisemitism, and German expansionism, this is 100% crystal clear. Even private diaries from people like Goebbels that are now public, makes their commitment abundantly clear.

Another example is Albert Speer (whose biography I've also read), where he initially was an opportunists but eventually became active participants in furthering the goals and believing the "mission" of the Nazis, even though initially (and afterwards) wasn't as convinced (edit: by his own accounts, many historians disagree with this today).

Characterizing the leadership/inner-circle/leaders as merely power-seekers who didn't believe their own ideology minimizes their moral culpability and misrepresents the historical record.

[Yoric]

You may be right. I'll need to double-check.

[goatlover]

Likely trolling and pushing boundaries to see what he can get away with. Similar to Trump. They're grifters and like being the center of attention. I don't think they have real ideologies. Whatever works for them. Well, maybe Musk buys into techno feudalism.

[dennis_jeeves2]

>But one has to question why the fuck he thought it was a good idea.

Probably not a good idea publicly. I'd say he slipped if he did do it. I do find NS to be very funny because it annoys/offend some people, most comedians similarly will find it funny.

[KaiserPro]

> I'd say he slipped if he did do it

I mean yeah, but he did it more than once, and it wasn't like it was an odd sort of wave, it was a full on parade standard Hitlergruß (thumpy on the chest hand out at the ascribed hitler angle). Which he then repeated to the audience in the front and the people behind him.

Monty python use to do it all the time, as did a number of other comedies. but the important distinction is that comedians aren't in power.

Musk arguably has more power than the president. So him thinking that it can't harm to try the old nazi salute, with unprecedented power isn't a healthy thing for democracy, regardless of who you think should be in power. Do you think he's going to give up that power willingly?

[dennis_jeeves2]

I have to admit, if I had all the power in the world I'd be openly offending various groups. Although in bad taste, it serves as a test to weed out petty people. Further I'd be offering those groups a clean exit to from their own 'offenseless' society.

Now coming to the democracy thing - I'm not sure it's the best form of governance as is commonly understood, so I personally don't value it. I don't imply that the opposite of democracy is tyranny either. I suspect that groups exist that are outside of typical govts and personally I'd be a part of such group, than participate in a 'democracy' which caters to a relatively low IQ - the stuff that Monty Python highlights.

I would think that EM has already reached that stage of no wanting the approval of those easily offended people.

[KaiserPro]

> reached that stage of no wanting the approval of those easily offended people.

He craves approval, the people that he crave it from are just as easily offended as anyone else.

Can you imagine the death threats if he pulled out a pride flag, or said he loved his transgendered kid?

[dennis_jeeves2]

>> reached that stage of no wanting the approval of those easily offended people.

>He craves approval, the people that he crave it from are just as easily offended as anyone else.

I would not make that assumption unless I knew him personally.

[drawkward]

>I have to admit, if I had all the power in the world I'd be openly offending various groups. Although in bad taste, it serves as a test to weed out petty people.

In this scenario, it is the people offended by the Nazi salute, and not the person doing it for outrage bait who are petty?

Brother, I have been accused of a lack of self-awareness, but man this is next level! In your own scenario you have all the power in the world; you dont ever have to weed out anyone, by definition.

[specproc]

I don't think there's any real question as to what he's doing there.

The ADL these days mainly exist to shout "antisemite" at anyone criticising Israel. Their giving him a pass was sickening, and undoubtedly related to Republican support of ethnic cleansing in Gaza.

Other Jewish organisations have called it as the world has seen it. One organisation does not speak for a very diverse people.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/26/elon-musk...

[drawkward]

The ADL can be wrong too. The ADL can want to avoid harassment from Elon's brownshirts.

[computerthings]

You mean the same ADL that sees no problem in Gaza? Okay?

https://www.jta.org/2025/01/21/politics/how-did-the-adl-conc...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk_salute_controversy#J...

> There also doesn’t seem to be any corroborating data to suggest he’s a nazi.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/11/22/ilnh-n22.html

> On November 15, a Zionist account posted a tweet attacking Nazis for being “cowards” and posting ‘Hitler was right.’” In response, a fascist account replied that “Jewish communities have been pushing... dialectical hatred against whites” through “hordes of minorities... flooding their country.”

> Musk responded to the latter post with the statement, “You have said the actual truth.”

Those, and so much more, are the facts. You cherry-pick the ADL, say "there doesn't seem to be anything else", and conclude everyone, including Auschwitz survivors who seriously have better things to do, just "hate Musk".