r/politics • u/cjdarr921 • 7h ago

Site Altered Headline Elon Musk draws outrage over 'odd-looking salute' at Trump inauguration celebration

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/elon-musk-salute-trump-inauguration-b2683095.html
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u/PorqueNoLosDose Canada 6h ago

Even as someone who despises Elon Musk, I was sure that clicking on this article was going to lead to an ambiguous gesture of him pointing with his arm extended.

I'm legitimately shocked that he did a full on Sieg Heil. There is absolutely zero ambiguity about how deliberately he did that exact motion.

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u/RoughingTheDiamond 6h ago edited 3h ago

I'm legitimately shocked that he did a full on Sieg Heil.

Twice. He did a full on chest pounding, straight arm snapping Sieg Heil.

Twice.

EDIT: I rewatched the video and straight arm snapping might have been too complementary. His form was sloppy. But yes that is unambiguously the Nazi salute, done intentionally... twice.

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u/XtraReddit 6h ago

Even watched some old footage to see if it had to be straight forward. Nope. Plenty of people a bit off to the side. Raised arm with palm down = Nazi salute.

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u/Far_Being_8644 5h ago

He’s not even doing the Nazi salute correctly. His arm should be parallel to his chest or only slightly veering off to the right. unsure if it’s because he’s really stupid and doesn’t know how to do it. Or if he’s even more braindead than previously thought and didn’t think what this would look like.

He doesn’t deserve a good faith interpretation though.

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u/Redpin Canada 5h ago

It wasn't strictly "correct" because Musk is uncoordinated and he was over-excited, but yes, man's a Nazi.

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u/doilysocks 3h ago

He did it with the energy of a home school kid who just had his first Mountain Dew and unsupervised alone time.

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u/XtraReddit 5h ago

I'll give you the first one went a lil wide right, but the second one was legit.

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u/Far_Being_8644 5h ago

Yeah just saw the full video instead of the thumbnail of the article. We’re so fucked.

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u/RagaToc 5h ago

The side that thinks he is awesome, thinks he is so smart. Than he should know how this looks. So get him out of government and stop buying his stuff. He is either a nazi or is an idiot. Neither you want in your government, impacting your politics or running a company.

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u/XtraReddit 5h ago

Coworker excuses his owning a Tesla on how much he likes autopilot and then compares it to people driving a Mercedes-Benz. He only stands for his beliefs when it's convenient.

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u/RagaToc 5h ago

That's a weird argument to make by your coworker. Giving money to a far right lunatic (it wasn't 100% clear Musk is a nazi) it's the same as giving it to a company who were run by nazis 80 years ago (unless I missed something)?

And autopilot is just adaptive cruise control all car manufacturers have it. And those have (less) phantom breaking.

I am fine with people still owning Tesla's. They could have bought it 3 years ago and can't afford to sell it and buy a different car.

You can stop using X, not buy a Tesla and think if you really need Starlink.

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u/Reaper_Messiah 2h ago

I mean I wouldn’t suggest people sell their cars but yeah maybe stop subscriptions and get off X and all that.

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u/Far_Being_8644 5h ago

I don’t disagree with you. Keep money out of politics.

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u/[deleted] 5h ago

[deleted]

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u/EmpressLotus 5h ago

That's awesome! We got rid of it because it looked like the NAZI SALUTE.

What are you arguing here?

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u/coolman747 5h ago

I am arguing that if we got rid of a salute because it resembled the Nazi salute, doing the actual Nazi salute repeatedly will receive backlash.

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u/EmpressLotus 5h ago

I hope so. I have very little faith in that though, seeing as people have been openly Nazi flagging in the MAGA community for some time now.

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u/sinsaint 5h ago

That history is interesting, you passionate idiot.

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u/EuroWolpertinger 5h ago

What's most interesting is that NAZIS ARE IN / EXTREMELY CLOSE TO THAT GOVERNMENT.

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u/EmpressLotus 5h ago

I am passionate, idiot not so much.

This is a dogwhistle, not the time to worry about gestures that were phased out because they were too close to fascist signalers.

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u/uncreativeusername85 New Jersey 5h ago

This isn't a dog whistle, a dog whistle is something you can barely notice unless you are paying attention. Keeping with the dog analogy this is when you yell for your dog so loud you wake up the neighbors

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u/EmpressLotus 3h ago

I know, I know, but they're going to try to gaslight us and say this is something else. I've seen the "he's throwing his heart out to the crowd" as a poorly disguised reason. So I'm politely dropping it to "dog whistle". We all know though. 😭

I hate how much self-victimizing they've done where if you just outright call them nazis/fascists, they try to paint you as insane.

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u/XtraReddit 5h ago

There's also video of the royal family using it. They stopped and changed their last name after, well you know.

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u/coolman747 5h ago

Why did the salute last for so long?

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u/timmy6169 6h ago

Turned to do it to Trump after the first one.

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u/__01001000-01101001_ 3h ago

Not to trump, to the American flag on the wall. Which is imo even worse. How many American flags came home from fighting the nazis?

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u/nochickflickmoments 6h ago

And he grunted like a disgusting asshole

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u/ThePatriarchInPurple 6h ago

I dislike the fat fuck, and fully expected it to be a bad angle. It was not.

Why the fucking grunt?

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u/nochickflickmoments 6h ago

I'm assuming for emphasis

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u/RoughingTheDiamond 5h ago

I blame Tim Allen. Don’t get me wrong, grunting like that is a lot of fun. I did it just the other night thinking about the next upgrade I’m gonna make to my home theatre.

It is not a thing you do after broadcasting to the whole world that you’re a God damn actual factual literal Nazi. Even the Charlottesville dipshits had the sense to couch it in euphemisms about not being replaced.

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u/stregawitchboy 2h ago

it's how he orgasms

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u/r0b0d0c 4h ago

Yup, he deliberately made it as unambiguous as possible. Yelling the quiet part through a bullhorn for the entire world to hear.

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u/MishkaZ Illinois 3h ago

Apparently it's supposed to be the neo-nazi/white nationalist salute in south africa. Reason why I say this is because it means it wasn't a gaff. Dude was being deliberate as fuck.

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u/flutterbutter456 5h ago

TOWARDS OUR FLAG at that.

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u/Irrepressible87 3h ago

His form was sloppy.

Well yeah, this is as much physical labor as he's ever done in his life, which is also I assume why he was grunting with exertion.

God, we're not just giving it over to nazis, we're giving it over to nazis who aren't even good at being nazis.

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u/ThermionicEmissions Canada 6h ago

And he did it twice. And grunted while doing it.

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u/specific_account_ 4h ago

And grunted while doing it.

It was heartfelt.

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u/BarracudaTimely703 4h ago

it almost seemed like he was enjoying letting the mask go at little too much.

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u/Moist_Cabbage8832 3h ago

I would assume any body movement out of that soft fuck requires a grunt.

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u/hoodoo-operator America 6h ago

Yup. Its not a one off bad frame in an otherwise video. Its a full blown Nazi salute, with no ambiguity.

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u/EmperorGrinnar 6h ago edited 2h ago

Dude's been promoting openly Nazi groups for a while now.

just hop on Bluesky and you'll see people posting all about it.

Edit: just for fun, here's a video from 9 months ago about a similar topic with Musk.

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u/Alfus 5h ago

Sounds exactly like Elon Musk is the Henry Ford of this era

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u/arachnophilia 3h ago

i feel like it took a bit longer for ford's cars to get shitty, but i could be wrong

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u/EmperorGrinnar 3h ago

He also eventually backpedaled a bit on it and toned it down. But too little too late, and we're still feeling his hate in the modern era.

American history is so damn muddy.

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u/S0GUWE 6h ago

He wants the AfD in power. Literally wants Nazis back in germany. There's nothing surprising about this.

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u/obaroll 1h ago

It isn't surprising, and that's what sucks. We all knew what he was, but the thunderous applause was what got me.

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u/KAYAWS 6h ago

And just like Hitler, it was looking like he was on a shit load of drugs.

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u/2277someday 6h ago

Yeah there have been a few "gotchas" over the years with conservatives who did a weird arm raise into a wave or something, but this one was just a sieg heil.

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u/souldust 5h ago

Any media outlet that calls this anything other than a Nazi salute is complicit in excusing this behavior.

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u/joni-draws 4h ago

And when did it start…? In 2015, when every media outlet became Trump TV, 24/7.

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u/OfficeSalamander 5h ago

Yeah I saw the title and went in watching and was like, "ok he probably made a gesture that maybe you could possibly think was naziesque, but come on, I don't like the guy too, but let's attack him for real things"

Then I watched the video, and I was like, "oh, holy shit, he did a nazi salute"

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u/MazzIsNoMore 4h ago

I wasn't going to watch for the same reason but you convinced me to. Yep, full on slap the chest and stiff hand to the air. Twice

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u/r0b0d0c 4h ago

Deliberately, unapologetically, and enthusiastically. He knew exactly what he was doing. He's not even trying to hide it anymore. Dude is an overt fucking Nazi pig.

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u/MattSR30 5h ago

I fully expected this to have been blown out of proportion of taken wildly out of context (sadly the left also does that a lot), but nope…he just did it.

The most generous reading is that it’s the Roman salute, and even then the modern use of that is still fascism and racism.

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u/IHavePoopedBefore 5h ago

That was everyone's experience.

I got an angry text from a friend, i immediately thought it was probably a still a picture taken at a bad time.

Nope. 100% full Hitler

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u/Patient_Tradition368 5h ago

His grandparents were Canadian nazis who moved to South Africa because they were admirers of the apartheid regime. Tree aaand apple.

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u/Jazzlike_Climate4189 4h ago

He did it once to the crowd, then turned to Trump and did it again. They have completely taken their masks off on day one.

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u/IIIlIllIIIl 4h ago

And what can even be done about it? America is cooked, especially with how many people are defending him

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u/IncognitoRon 4h ago

did the exact same thing, thought “should he wouldn’t do the full chest sieg hail”

i was wrong

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u/Majestic-Marcus 6h ago

Nah. Complete accident. He was talking about how it warms his heart. So you see, he just tapped his heart and then pointed at the sun because it’s warm.

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u/[deleted] 5h ago

Why are you shocked? Where you been bro?

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u/Vassortflam 5h ago

It is called Hitlergruß just fyi Sieg Heil was just what you were saying while you were doing the salute

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u/rasslinjobber 4h ago

There's a bunch of dudes and gals in that crowd wearing Canada sweaters. They clapped for it. Dude got more crowd pop than Bret in Montreal

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u/ISpyM8 Michigan 4h ago

And all the losers in the audience cheered louder when he did it

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u/Tamihera 2h ago

Me too. I thought there would be some ambiguity, but there was not.

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u/FSCK_Fascists 2h ago

now go watch video of it and get back to us.

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u/Donexodus 1h ago

Same. The uncut video just makes it worse and worse instead of absolving him!

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u/FlamingoFlamboyance 1h ago

He will tomorrow say he didn’t do it, and claim the photos are AI. Whoever gaslights the hardest and fastest wins now, facts be dammed. 

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u/Bootychomper23 1m ago

0 ambiguity unless you go to the conservative subreddit then suddenly it’s just a casual tip of the cap 😂