{"id":3631,"date":"2025-01-22T14:24:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-22T18:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/?p=3631"},"modified":"2025-01-22T14:24:02","modified_gmt":"2025-01-22T18:24:02","slug":"musks-straight-arm-gesture-embraced-by-right-wing-extremists-regardless-of-what-he-meant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/?p=3631","title":{"rendered":"Musk\u2019s straight-arm gesture embraced by right-wing extremists regardless of what he meant"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Right-wing extremists are celebrating Elon Musk\u2019s straight-arm gesture during a speech Monday, although his intention wasn\u2019t totally clear and some hate watchdogs are saying not to read too much into it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI just want to say thank you for making it happen,\u201d Musk said during a speech at Capital One Arena, referring to Donald Trump\u2019s victory in the presidential election. Then he slapped his hand on his chest, extended his arm straight out and up with his palm facing down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy heart goes out to you,\u201d said Musk, after turning around to make a similar gesture facing the other way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many social media users noticed that the gesture looked like a Nazi salute. Musk has only fanned the flames of suspicion by not explicitly denying those claims in a dozen posts since, though he did make light of the criticism and lashed out at people making that interpretation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe \u2018everyone is Hitler\u2019 attack is sooo tired,\u201d Musk posted on X several hours after he left the stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Critics and fans alike of the Tesla CEO and world\u2019s richest man were quick to react to the gesture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe White Flame will rise again,\u201d a chapter of the white nationalist group White Lives Matter posted on Telegram.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMaybe woke really is dead,\u201d white nationalist Keith Woods posted on X.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDid Elon Musk just Heil Hitler …\u201d right-wing commentator Evan Kilgore posted on X. \u201cWe are so back.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Anti-Defamation League, an antisemitism and human rights watchdog, called it an \u201cawkward gesture\u201d and urged caution in jumping to conclusions. Other extremism monitors and experts pointed out it was unclear what Musk was trying to convey to the crowd of Trump\u2019s supporters by thrusting his arm out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m skeptical it was on purpose,\u201d said Jared Holt, a senior research analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, which tracks online hate. \u201cIt would be an act of self-sabotage that wouldn\u2019t really make much sense at all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Holt noted Musk specifically said his heart went out to the crowd. That could indicate a sort of gesture of thanks to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since Musk bought Twitter, now called X, the self-described \u201cfree speech absolutist\u201d has faced criticism from hate-speech watchdogs for allowing extremist, dangerous and antisemitic comments to flourish on the social media platform. His response has been to attack his critics, suing one group<\/a> unsuccessfully after advertisers fled<\/a> X and threatening to sue another, the Anti-Defamation League, which urged calm at what it called a \u201cdelicate moment\u201d in its statement Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt seems that @elonmusk<\/a> made an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute, but again, we appreciate that people are on edge,\u201d the ADL said in a statement. \u201cIn this moment, all sides should give one another a bit of grace, perhaps even the benefit of the doubt, and take a breath.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kurt Braddock, a professor of communication at American University who studies extremism, radicalization and terrorism, said the gesture was a fascist salute and \u201cpeople shouldn\u2019t doubt what they saw.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI know what I saw, I know what the response to it was among elements of the extreme right including neo-Nazis, Braddock said. \u201cAnd none of it is a laughing matter.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Efraim Zuroff, the retired head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center\u2019s Jerusalem office and formerly the organization\u2019s top Nazi hunter, said he also saw it as Nazi salute, and that it happened at U.S. presidential inauguration celebration made it especially shocking to see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s totally improper, and it raises all sorts of questions regarding his motivations, or his ignorance,\u201d he said in a telephone interview from Israel. \u201cThis is America, the leader of the free world, the people who sacrificed 200,000 soldiers who died to defend Europe. He has to explain himself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Europe where the fascist salute is associated with the hate, death and destruction of World War II, Musk\u2019s arm gesture elicited outrage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An Italian communist youth organization on Tuesday hung an effigy of Musk upside down in Milan\u2019s Piazzale Loreto, where Mussolini\u2019s body was hung upside down after he was executed during the final days of World War II. The organization, Cambiare Rotta (Change Course), noted in a Facebook post that a photo of the effigy had been removed by the social media company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are correctly a little afraid, because that image is scary,\u2019\u2019 author Filippo Ceccarelli told Italian La7 private television.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Known as the Roman salute in Italy, the straight-arm greeting officially adopted in 1925 by the dictator Benito Mussolini\u2019s fascist regime is banned in Italy though it is rarely prosecuted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Musk\u2019s representative in Italy, Andrea Stroppa, published the photo on X with the words: \u201cRoman Empire is back, starting with the Roman salute,\u201d according to the news agency ANSA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He later deleted the post, writing that Musk \u201cis autistic,\u201d and was expressing his emotions but denying he was emulating fascism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe does not like extremists,\u2019\u2019 Stroppa wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In France on Monday, more than 80 associations, including human rights, environmental and press freedom groups left X, though it is unclear if Musk was the trigger or Trump\u2019s inauguration. Several universities and schools left X, too, as well as nationwide and local newspaper on various sides of the political spectrum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brian Levin, founder of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, said even if it was accidental, the gesture Musk did has the power to hurt people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re a public figure at the highest echelons of power on Inauguration Day, doing a salute like that is extraordinarily disturbing and it calls for an explanation from Musk,\u201d he said. \u201cPoints are made about free speech. Well, along with free speech comes responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Levin said some extremists will take the gesture regardless of its intent as \u201csome kind of not-so-subtle marching order.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Right-wing extremists are celebrating E […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3632,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3631"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3631\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3633,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3631\/revisions\/3633"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}