Discussion about this post

User's avatar
J. Ricardo's avatar

Look, I like about half of what Elon does, was a fan for a long time, recently read his biography, and think he’s the most important entrepreneur of this century (at least), but people aren't blind.

The fact that even Musk supporters are claiming it was a troll makes something very obvious: Musk did a salute that is nearly identical to a Roman salute. If it wasn’t obvious he did it, why would supporters feel the need to call it a troll? It's because they're not fucking blind, either.

He did it for one of three reasons:

1. To signal his fascist sympathies (either intentionally or a slip)

2. He’s trolling

3. He was some how trying express his love/heart to a crowd with that specific motion.

You can make a case that it's #3, but I actually think it's extremely weird to make that assumption. I've lived on this Earth for over 40 years, and I can count on exactly zero fingers the number of times I've seen someone make that motion in a non-Nazi way. It's certainly possible that Elon Musk is the first, but it's a very strange conclusion to jump to. At the very least, it's beyond dumb to talk to other people like they didn't see what they clearly saw.

The guy gave a fascist salute on purpose, as a joke, or on accident, but he definitely did it.

#2 seems the most likely, which is also strangely the most pathetic.

Expand full comment
Chance Phillips's avatar

I think you fail to wrestle with Musk’s history of retweeting and replying “So true!” to explicitly antisemitic posts in this piece. (and underrate the explanation that he was trying to “trigger the libs” by making them think he was doing a Nazi salute but was really doing some other gesture, a la past versions od this debate.)

Musk appearing like he did a Nazi salute is in part a big news story because he publicly likes what a lot of literal Nazis say, because he endorsed the AfD, etc.

Expand full comment
86 more comments...

No posts