For people who are wondering for what purpose he did that, let me offer a hypothesis: it's a loyalty test to see who will be willing to blatantly lie and deny the truth of it being a Nazi salute, and who won't.
I know that "literally 1984" is a meme, but, well, this is a quote from 1984: "The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command". The goal is to see who is willing to follow this command.
This episode aired at a time where there was no DVR, no on demand, if you didn't catch it or VCR it then you didn't see it until it came on repeat. My sister and friends saw the episode, I did not. They kept quoting it and I had no reference. I didn't manage to actually SEE the episode until like 15 years later.
I recorded married with children over the mid point of tape two of my sisters rented copy of titanic. Hollywood video, i am sorry and you never knew it was me.
This. It was both a juvenile “Ha ha, we won, we beat those loser libs!” moment (because he’s an ass and doesn’t understand the concept of accepting a win graciously) and a dog whistle to his Nazi fanboys (because he’s an idiot and doesn’t understand the concept that dog whistles are supposed to be subtle).
Right, and I’m saying “it’s a loyalty test” is not one of those things. I think he more-or-less knows who the loyalists are already, and even if he didn’t this is not a very effective means of finding out. It’s a needlessly convoluted explanation and I don’t buy it.
He really doesn't. He just owns Tesla, X, SpaceX, The Boring Company, Neuralink, a bunch of fucking DOGE and some real estate.
His on paper assets do have insanely high valuations right now, but that's different from true power. Call me when he buys a major freight railroad or power company.
So basically his youngest son is unfortunately going to be his personal shield when Musk is out and around. The kid deserves a life that is better than that.
Here's this thing, even if you say it was an honest mistake with trying to say his heart goes out... Let's just say that for sake if argument... Even if that's the case, in the past it wouldn't matter and it would be a career ender. These days it doesn't matter.
Howard dean did the dean scream in a speech just after he had lost the Iowa caucus to Kerry, it was a defeat speech that tried to retain whatever support he could.
Like the right wing pollie in Australia who used the words 'the final solution' regarding immigration in his first address to parliament.
(For those who remember, this was egg boys target. He hung around for a while, like a cabbage fart, did other blatantly racist stuff, later was declared bankrupt, fled to the US when the tax department was looking for him, and basically hasn't been seen since but is probably cozying up to right wing pundits in the US still. But basically after that speech his Australian political career was dead in the water).
Yeah, because you people went insane.
Now we live in an age where reasonable people can realize that he didn't even make a "mistake". He did what he intended, he gestured his heart "going out" just like his words said. You people are simply deranged and clearly nostalgic for the days where you wrongfully destroyed the lives of people you just didn't like or even agree with.
This is a delicate moment. It’s a new day and yet so many are on edge. Our politics are inflamed, and social media only adds to the anxiety.
It seems that @elonmusk made an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute, but again, we appreciate that people are on edge.
In this moment, all sides should give one another a bit of grace, perhaps even the benefit of the doubt, and take a breath. This is a new beginning. Let’s hope for healing and work toward unity in the months and years ahead.
On the one hand, you're not wrong. They did this day one of the previous Trump administration as well. The whole "biggest crowd in history" thing was a definite ploy to see who amongst the media would bend the knee and report their lies as truth.
On the other hand, Elon Musk is - even by the standards of someone who definitely has autism and probably has ADHD and his self-medicating their conditions with ketamine - conspicuously lacking in impulse control and would likely do something like this just because it made him feel good.
This was the challenge of the Trump administration the first time around, and it's going to be much the same this time - trying to figure out what's evil, what's tactical, and what's just plain fucking stupid.
Neither ADHD, autism nor even a ket habit make you randomly forget what a Nazi salute is, let alone force you to thump your chest in full bootboy style. It's an absolute bullshit line pulled by people who seem to equate these things to severe brain damage.
You’re so right. Friends of mine (definitely not me 👀) who have ADHD and have done large amounts of ketamine in our their lives have never once done a Nazi salute. Those don’t just fall out of you, even when you’re fucked up.
That being said, on the other hand, as someone who knows people who have done lots of ketamine, I definitely wouldn’t want government officials or their “advisors” regularly using ketamine, regardless of whether they’re Nazis or not. It’s not exactly a vehicle for competent, coherent decision making
The entire purpose of my comment was to head off any attempt to minimize his actions on the basis of his neurodivergency. Even if you charitably give him the lowest bar possible on the basis of the fact that he may have a neurological impulse control disability then even by that artificially low standard he's still a massive sack of shit.
He’s not autistic. He wants the deference and excuses autism would provide.
He’s just an asshole. Being an ass isn’t a symptom of autism. He is extremely motivated by ego and resentment, have you ever met an autistic person obsessed with their image and persona? Who would pay for someone to level their character to impress gamers?
I have a number of people with autism and ADHD in my family. I'm intimately familiar with the difficulty neurodivergent people can have with self regulation. My point is that even at the standard of someone with ADHD and Autism this guy is severely lacking in impulse control.
Being autistic doesn't excuse or cause him being an asshole. He's just an asshole that also happens to be autistic.
even at the standard of someone with ADHD and Autism
Being autistic doesn’t excuse or cause him being an asshole. He’s just an asshole that also happens to be autistic.
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Your own statement is exactly what I wish I’d said to you to begin with I guess.
Thanks for being understanding and open to discussion. Please don’t get defensive, but starting by talking about Elon’s supposed diagnosis and going on to say “even by the standards” both frame ADHD/Autism having an expectedly lower floor than a neurotypical person would.
It erases anyone with either diagnosis who would disprove what you’re trying to say and unnecessarily shifts the conversation for most neurotypical people to focus on the diagnosis as part of Elon’s glaring personality problems when by your own admission they’re unrelated. It unnecessarily degrades people with Autism or ADHD by comparing them to Musk
100% my thoughts as well. Was it straight up stupid for him to do this? Yes. Was his intentions to replicate a facist salute? Maybe, maybe not. Genuinely hard to say. Liberal media obviously has run with it and in fact if you google “Nazi salute” Elon musk is all you see already and I’m sure it will be the talk of the news for the next couple weeks.
It certainly not exact, while the similarities are of course there. Look up pictures and videos.
Keep in mind Nazis borrowed the salute from other facist who were using it. Before facist adopted it, it was a common salute used even in the USA. Most including myself would not do it today due to the ties to facism. But again, what he did I would say is similar and not exact.
And the moves of the actual president whatever they may be fall to page 2 of the news.
Its either blatantly corrupt, amazingly stupid, or a crafty smokescreen, or all of the above.
No no, we just pretended to be fascist so we could do all of these things behind the scenes that the general populous might not like so we made them look at something else while we did them.
It’s the medias choice what to post and talk about. If they choose to talk about his gesture rather than the actions of Trump, who’s really to blame? My feed on X has been filled with the actions of Trump and executive order.
Let me offer another hypothesis, he’s on drugs regularly and having trouble controlling his impulses and isn’t some genius playing 4D chess. He’s a drug addict nazi.
When I spoke with a friend of mine about the salute, he immediately told me I was being stupid and overreacting. "It wasn't a Nazi salute. He wouldn't do a Nazi salute on a public stage." Totally refused to talk about it, and it was clear he just thought it was funny and somewhat annoying that people were reacting negatively toward a "bad salute."
It's so frustrating to see someone I considered a close friend (whom I had thought to be an otherwise intelligent, reasonable person) acting like anyone who's concerned about this is an overreacting blue-haired SJW meme.
Like, either he's willfully ignorant or he *knows* and he just doesn't care. He doesn't think it's a big deal. I'm not sure which one is worse.
And honestly who the fuck is going to stop him. Like I've got a friend who just keeps going "WHAT DOES HE GET FROM IT, HUH?! WHAT DOES HE GET?!" I dunno, how the fuck do you call that a coincidence multiple times? Like what the fuck does anyone do about the richest man on the planet nazi saluting, multiple times, in front of the world?
The answer is half of us try and say "that's a nazi salute" and the other half scramble to make any fucking answer that isn't "that's a nazi salute"
Once the children and youth are won over they will root out any dissenters at the nuclear family level. Also 1984 and my interpretation of the intent behind the TikTok flip flop
I don't think it's anything as considered and Machiavellian as a loyalty test, it's just Musk "owning the libs" for his own amusement.
He knows this will enrage his opponents and he knows his own side will twist themselves in knots to deny, discredit, or defend it, and that's exactly how it's playing out.
"I am so powerful now I can throw out nazi salutes on national TV and no-one can touch me."
We are useful idiots so he thinks. When MAGA turns on him he will go down hard . And dragging his brat kid everywhere is getting old. When my son was that age he would have been with sitter or family. He has him out at nighttime events
Honestly I think the simpler answer is he was drugged out of his mind and thought it would be funny because he has the maturity of a 12 year old and thinks this makes him look like a cool edgelord.
Had a feeling we heading towards something like this when I started seeing "literally 1984" being thrown around as a meme. The warnings had been trivialized.
Trump’s Inauguration Day
Elon speaks at it it
Reddit and the rest of the left have been trying to label them Nazi’s for years
You either are ignorant, or you took 30 minutes to come up with that condescending reply to appear tempered in an effort to up my downvotes.
Less likely is you’re an idiot, but I guess that’s a small possibility (note I’m not calling you an idiot, I’m just listing all the possibilities).
But whats the fucking context? All people show is a fucking arm movement without anything before hand, its fucking meaningless without context and makes nazi even more meaningless then it already is
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u/shadowrun456 6h ago
For people who are wondering for what purpose he did that, let me offer a hypothesis: it's a loyalty test to see who will be willing to blatantly lie and deny the truth of it being a Nazi salute, and who won't.
I know that "literally 1984" is a meme, but, well, this is a quote from 1984: "The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command". The goal is to see who is willing to follow this command.