Elon Musk has sparked outrage over a one-armed gesture he made during a speech at Donald Trump's inauguration.
Musk thanked the crowd for “making it happen,” before placing his right hand over his heart and then thrusting the same arm into the air directly in front of him. Then he turned around and repeated the command to the person sitting behind him.
Many on his social media platform, X, likened the gesture to a Nazi salute.
In response, Musk posted on X: “Honestly, they need better dirty tricks. The 'everyone's Hitler' attack is so tired.”
Musk, the world's richest man and a close ally of President Trump, was speaking at Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C., when he made the gesture.
After giving the second salute with one arm, he said, “My heart is with you. Thanks to you, the future of civilization is secure.”
There was immediate backlash on social media.
Claire Aubin, a historian specializing in Nazism in the United States, said that Musk's gesture was a “Nazi salute.”
“My professional opinion is you're fine, you should believe your eyes,” she posted on X, referring to those who believe the gesture is an overt reference to Nazis.
“Fascism historian here. It was a Nazi salute and a very aggressive salute as well,” said Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a history professor at New York University.
Andrea Stroppa, a close confidant of Musk who served as an intermediary between the billionaire and far-right Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, posted a clip of Musk with “The Roman Empire is back starting with the Roman salute,” Italian media reported.
The Roman salute was widely used in Italy by the Fascist Party led by Benito Mussolini, before being later adopted by Adolf Hitler in Germany.
Italian media said Stroba later deleted his post. He later posted that “the gesture, which some mistook for a Nazi salute, was simply Elon, who is autistic, expressing his feelings by saying: 'I want to give you my heart.'”
“That's exactly what he said on the microphone. Elon hates extremists!”
This gesture comes as Musk's politics shift increasingly to the right. He has recently made statements in support of Germany's far-right Alternative for Germany party and Britain's anti-immigration Reform Party.
But some defended him, including the Anti-Defamation League, an organization founded to combat anti-Semitism.
“It appears that Elon Musk made an embarrassing gesture in a moment of excitement, not a Nazi salute,” the group posted on X.
Musk became one of Trump's close allies and was appointed to co-lead what the president called the Government Efficiency Administration.
