Did Elon Musk perform a Nazi salute at Trump’s inauguration?

The night was supposed to be Donald Trump’s – but in the end it was Elon Musk who stole the show at the inauguration after appearing to give two back-to-back Nazi salutes on-stage.

Addressing Trump supporters just hours after the Republican candidate was sworn in as the 47th US president last night, Musk hailed the electoral outcome as ‘no ordinary victory’.

‘I just want to say thank you for making it happen,’ said Musk, the owner of SpaceX, X and Tesla and the richest person on earth at the Capital One Arena in Washington.

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‘This was a fork in the road of human civilization. This one really mattered. Thank you for making it happen! Thank you!’

Musk then signed off his speech by slapping his hand to his heart before shooting out his right arm at an upwards angle, with his fingers together and his palm facing down.

The tech billionaire, who has been tasked with running Trump’s newly-created ‘Department of Government Efficiency’, then turned around and performed the same gesture for a second time before exiting the stage.

Did Elon Musk perform a Nazi salute?

Musk’s actions immediately drew scrutiny online, with many accusing the SpaceX owner of performing the Sieg Heil salute associated with Adolf Hitler.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) defines a Nazi salute as ‘raising an outstretched right arm with the palm down’.

They downplayed the incident, and said Musk’s gesture was an ‘awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute’.

‘In this moment, all sides should give one another a bit of grace, perhaps even the benefit of the doubt, and take a breath,’ the ADL said in a post on X.

‘This is a new beginning. Let’s hope for healing and work toward unity in the months and years ahead.’

But while the ADL were quick to downplay the significance of the salute, other experts in the field were quick to disagree.

Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was among the first to blast the ADL for appearing to give Musk a pass, writing: ‘Just to be clear, you are defending a Heil Hitler salute that was performed and repeated for emphasis and clarity.

‘People can officially stop listening to you as any sort of reputable source of information now. You work for them. Thank you for making that crystal clear to all.’

Meanwhile, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a history professor at New York University said: ‘Historian of fascism here. It was a Nazi salute and a very belligerent one too.’

‘Yes I saw it. And yes it is,’ said Professor Claire Aubin, a historian of Naziism in America, in a post on Bluesky.

British columnist Owen Jones also tweeted ‘This honestly could not look more like a Nazi salute’ in a post on X.

Meanwhile, Israeli media outlet Haaretz reported that Musk concluded his remarks with a ‘“Roman salute,” a fascist salute most commonly associated with Nazi Germany’.

Far-right extremists delighted by Elon Musk’s salute

On the other side of the political spectrum, neo-nazi’s and other far-right extremists were extremely pleased by Musk’s salute, which they claim demonstrated his ongoing support to their cause.

White Nationalist group White Lives Matter celebrated the gesture on their Telegram group, posting a picture of it alongside a banner the group had displayed at a motorway overpass which read: ‘Elon Musk Stop White Genocide.’

‘Thanks for (sometimes) hearing us, Elon. The White Flame will rise again,’ they posted in a caption accompanying the post.

The far-right Proud Boys group also posted pictures of their incident on their social accounts, along with the caption ‘Hail Trump!’

Australian neo-nazi Thomas Sewell, whose online avatar shows him throwing a Sieg Heil of his own, posted the video to his Telegram channel and called it a ‘Donald Trump White Power moment.’

Meanwhile Andrew Torba, founder of the far-right social media platform Gab, also shared the clip on his platform and said ‘Incredible things are happening already lmao.’

What has Elon Musk said?

Elon Musk was quick to distance himself from the accusations following the incident, taking to X to respond to the criticism. ‘Frankly, they need better dirty tricks. The “everyone is Hitler” attack is so tired,’ he tweeted, while reposting a message from 2022 in which he declared that he was no longer a Democrat and was preparing for a ‘dirty tricks campaign’ in response.

But, intentional or not, the gesture is consistent with Musk’s current politics, which have shifted sharply to the right following his allegiance to Trump on the campaign trail last year.

After purchasing Twitter, which he renamed X, Musk welcomed thousands of white nationalists back to the platform who had previously been banned for hate speech.

His own personal X account is also increasingly indistinguishable from those of the extremists he has chosen to platform in the name of free speech, regularly sharing memes and conspiracy theories associated with the alt-right.

Earlier this month, he briefly changed his username to ‘Kekius Maximus’ and changed his profile picture to an image of Pepe the Frog, a meme which was adopted as a figurehead by the alt-right during Trump’s first campaign in 2016 and was previously labelled as a hate symbol by the ADL.

In late 2023, Musk also embarked on a so-called ‘apology tour’ to Israel after sharing anti-semetic posts accompanied by the phrase ‘the actual truth’, and has referred to anti-racism watchdog the South Poverty Law Center as a ‘criminal organisation’.

Musk has also lent his support to Germany’s far-right AfD party in recent months, personally interviewing their leader Alice Weidel on X, and has shared posts in support of British far-right extremist Tommy Robinson.