Elon Musk has issued a statement after being accused of giving a \u201cNazi salute\u201d during yesterday\u2019s inauguration for Donald Trump.<\/p>\n
Trump was officially sworn in on Monday, January 20, and will now begin his second term as President of the United States. Naturally, there was plenty to talk about following yesterday\u2019s swearing in, with Trump making typically lofty promises as for the next four years.<\/p>\n
Yet though some people chose to focus on First Lady Melania Trump\u2019s choice of hat, while others zoned in on just how much Vice President J.D. Vance\u2019s daughter resembles her father, it was arguably Elon Musk who caused the most stir online.<\/p>\n
The Tesla CEO and SpaceX founder, who used his social media platform \u2018X\u2019 (formerly Twitter) to champion Trump\u2019s cause in the run up to the election, was at the Capital One Arena in Washington ahead of yesterday\u2019s Inauguration Day parade.<\/p>\n
Delivering a rousing speech during which he spoke about sending the first human to Mars and planting an American flag on the \u201cRed Planet\u201d, Musk then courted controversy with a gesture that saw him thump his chest and fire his right arm out towards the sky.<\/p>\n
\u201cThank you for making it happen. Thank you, my heart goes out to you,\u201d Musk then said, before turning back to the audience and repeating the gesture towards the US flag.<\/p>\n
The historical parallels that can be drawn with such a salute are obvious, and it wasn\u2019t long before the internet erupted with reactions. CNN anchor Kasie Hunt described the move as \u2018not something you typically see at American rallies\u2019, and said it was \u2018evocative of things that we have seen through history\u2019.<\/p>\n
On Elon Musk\u2019s own platform, X, people were a little bit more brazen with their opinions, accusing the 53-year-old of having performed a \u201cSieg Heil\u201d as \u201cclear as day\u201d.<\/p>\n
Anti-Defamation League, the antisemitism watchdog, moved to defend Musk, writing on X: \u201cIt seems that [Musk] make an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute, but again, we appreciate that people on on edge.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a delicate moment. It\u2019s a new day and yet so many are on edge. Our politics are inflamed, and social media only adds to the anxiety.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn this moment, all sides should give one another a bit of grace, perhaps even the benefit of the doubt, and take a breath. This is a new beginning. Let\u2019s hope for healing and work toward unity in the months and years ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n
US Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was quick to clap back at the Anti-Defamation League, writing: \u201cJust to be clear, you are defending a Heil Hitler salute that was performed and repeated for emphasis and clarity.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Musk himself then accused Cortez of having: \u2018just 100 percent lost her marbles\u2019.<\/p>\n
Another X user wrote: \u201cCan we please retire the calling people a Nazi thing? It didn\u2019t work during the election, it\u2019s not working now, it\u2019s tired, boring, and old material, you\u2019ve burned out its effect, people don\u2019t feel shocked by it anymore, the wolf has been cried too many times.\u201d<\/p>\n
Under that comment, Musk replied: \u201cyeah exactly\u2019 and a yawn emoji before adding in a follow-up \u201cFrankly, they need better dirty tricks. The \u2018everyone is Hitler\u2019 attack is sooo tired.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Elon Musk has issued a statement after being accused of giving a \u201cNazi salute\u201d during yesterday\u2019s inauguration for Donald Trump. Trump was officially sworn in on Monday, January 20, and will now begin his second term as President of the United States. Naturally, there was plenty to talk about following yesterday\u2019s swearing in, with Trump […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1440,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fnews06.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fnews06.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fnews06.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fnews06.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fnews06.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1439"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fnews06.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1439\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1441,"href":"https:\/\/fnews06.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1439\/revisions\/1441"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fnews06.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fnews06.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fnews06.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fnews06.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}