Musk responded to gestures at Trump’s rally

Elon Musk has sparked outrage over a one-armed gesture during a speech celebrating Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Musk thanked the crowd for “making this happen” before placing his right hand over his heart and then throwing that same hand in the air directly in front of him. Then he turned and repeated the same action for the people sitting behind him.

Many on the social media platform X, which he owns, compared the gesture to a Nazi salute.

In response, Musk posted on X: “Frankly, they need better dirty tricks. The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is so tiring.”

Musk, the world’s richest man and a close ally of President Trump, was speaking at the Capital One Arena in Washington DC when he made the gesture.

“My heart is with you. It is thanks to you that the future of civilization is assured,” the 53-year-old man said after giving a second armed salute.

There was immediate reaction on social media.

Claire Aubin, a historian who specializes in Nazism within the United States, said Musk’s gesture was a “Sieg Heil” or Nazi salute.

“My professional opinion is that you are absolutely fine, you should believe your eyes,” she posted on X in reference to those who believed the gesture was an overt reference to the Nazis.

“Here’s a historian of fascism. It was a Nazi salute and very militant,” said Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a history professor at New York University.

Musk’s close confidant Andrea Stroppa, who has linked him with far-right Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, was reported by Italian media to have posted the clip of Musk with the caption: “From the Roman Empire Roman salute Has started and is back”.

The Roman salute was widely used by Benito Mussolini’s Fascist Party in Italy, later adopted by Adolf Hitler in Germany.

Italian media said Stroppa later deleted his post. He later posted that “The gesture, which some thought was a Nazi salute, is simply Elon, who has autism, expressing his feelings by saying, ‘I want to give you my heart’,” He said.

“This is what he communicated into the microphone. Elon dislikes extremists!”

The gesture comes as Musk’s politics have shifted sharply to the right. He has made recent statements in support of Germany’s far-right AfD party and the British anti-immigration party Reform UK.

But some have defended him, including the Anti-Defamation League, an organization founded to combat anti-Semitism.

“Looks like Elon Musk made a weird gesture in a moment of excitement, not a Nazi salute,” the group posted on X.

Musk has become one of Trump’s closest allies and has been chosen to co-lead what the president has called the Department of Government Efficiency.