Musk's Salute Was No Accident

I have given lots of speeches in my lifetime. Some inspiring and encouraging. Some furtive and desperate. Some voice-shakingly emotional. Some rehearsed. Some spontaneous. Some excited. Some tragic.

Never once have I accidentally thrown a Nazi salute. In 41 years of life, I have never once accidentally mimicked a Nazi.

Yet, “accidental” is what conservatives expect you to believe about the inauguration speech yesterday wherein Elon Musk tapped his chest, flung his arm in the air at a straight, almost perfect 45 degree angle. He kept his wrist stiff, his palm down.

Then he turned around and did it a second time.

The X account Media Lies said Musk was simply “gesturing that his heart goes out to the crowd.”

Another X user wrote: “excited, awkward, not thinking about how he looks…”

What is this compulsion right-wingers have to tie themselves in knots to either ignore or defend the indefensible?

Elon Musk’s Nazi salute yesterday wasn’t an accident. It was a dog whistle. A literal dog whistle emits a sound at a pitch that can't be heard with the human ear, but dogs can hear it. During times of slavery, slave owners sent dogs out in packs to retrieve runaway slaves and used whistles to signal to them. The slaves couldn't hear the whistles and didn't know they were being hunted. Even in post-Civil War, dog whistles were used to harass and intimidate Black Americans.

Today, the term dog whistle refers to actions or phrases that were designed to harm that sort of fly under the radar of the cultural conscience. Musk knew what he was doing, signaling to Trump’s most ardent racist supporters that they are back in power — this time with fewer guardrails. These are the people who terrorized their own sleepy, peaceful communities to show their allegiance to Trump. These are the ones who carried tiki torches at Unite the Right rallies. Who chanted “Jews will not replace us.” These are the people who drove a car into counterprotestors standing up for justice and equality; who engage in domestic terrorism; who brought AR-15s to rallies in support of Black lives. These are the people who Trump called “very fine people.”

Flowers and a photo of car ramming victim Heather Heyer lie at a makeshift memorial in Charlottesville, Virginia, August 13, 2017. Photo by Justin Ide/Reuters.

These are the people who stormed the Capitol when Trump didn’t win in 2020. Who brought violence and desecration to the steps of our most sacred governmental offices. Who built gallows to hang the vice president and yelled “here, Nancy, Nancy” throughout the halls. These are the people Trump has called hostages. The 1,500 criminals he just pardoned.

Musk was communicating them, encouraging them, celebrating them.

A Nazi salute is an unnatural way to gesture. It takes concentration to react that way. Movements must be practiced before they become spontaneous. When I say, “Wave like a beauty queen,” you know exactly what I mean. You cup your hand, fingers close together, and move your wrist robotically. When I tell you to show me the sign for no, you make a fist and move your wrist from side to side. Even if you’ve never been a beauty queen or needed to use sign language, you’re conscious about those movements through cultural exposure to them.

So sure, buy the argument if you must that Musk’s salute was an off-the-cuff gesture of elation. That does not mean it was accidental. It means that this is the way Musk and his friends celebrate. It means they greet each other with Nazi salutes. It means their thoughtless, on-stage movements are one of the most recognized symbols of hate and fascism, directly connected with war and genocide.

The idea for the Nazi salute originated in Italy in the 1920s under Mussolini’s fascist regime. Mussolini and his cult followers would kiss each other on each cheek, then raise their right arm in the air with the angle slightly bent. During the Nazis ascent in Germany in the 1930s, Germans began greeting each other with a similar but slightly different stiff-armed salute to show their allegiance to Hitler and his twisted ideology.

After 1933, all Germans were expected to give the salute, including Jews. People saluted each other on the streets, in parties, even during funerals. They saluted their radios when Hitler gave addresses. But as his speeches turned against the Jewish people, calling them cockroaches and “less than human,” they were suddenly excluded from saluting. It was one of the first ways the Germans segregated and isolated themselves from the Jews they would later steal businesses and property from. The Nazi salute became a symbol for dehumanizing Jews and justifying their murder.

Hitler dismantled democracy in 53 days. We are on Day 2 of Trump’s presidency and he has already written dozens of executive orders, eliminating constitutional protections, creating offices without congressional approval, revoking local control, defying science, and asserting his authority over the federal workforce. So many of his first rulings came from Project 2025, which he claimed to know little about during the campaign.

Pay attention to what is happening. Yesterday I wrote that you will be astonished at how quickly democracy will crumble in the first few days of Donald Trump’s presidency. Trump and Musk and all of the other tech oligarchs will bash it in like a broken lamp shade or a crushed skull.

Your eyes are not betraying you, and this is as bad as it looks.

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