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Martin Alintuck
Global Jew Living in Thailand

Believe your lying eyes!

If it looks like a Nazi salute and comes from the same Elon Musk who has dabbled in antisemitism and supports far-right causes, what is it?
Elon Musk speaks at the Donald Trump inauguration rally (Screenshot)
Elon Musk speaks at the Donald Trump inauguration rally (Screenshot)

The late comedian Richard Pryor, in a comedy bit about his wife catching him cheating with another woman, denies anything is going on and asks his wife “Who you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?” It’s a very funny piece of dialogue that brings absurdity to a fictional situation involving dishonesty, disrespect and denial.

I was reminded of this Pryor line, shortly after Elon Musk appeared to TWICE offer a Nazi salute to the crowd at a Trump Inaugural event. I quickly went to YouTube and watched a clip of what happened several times. It sure looked to me like a Nazi salute.

The second salute. Elon Musk speaks at the Donald Trump inauguration rally (Screenshot)

After Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered that “Elon Musk is being falsely smeared,” Musk thanked him in a tweet and went on to write: “Don’t say Hess to Nazi accusations! Some people will Goebbels anything down! Stop Gőring your enemies! His pronouns would’ve been He/Himmler! Bet you did nazi that coming,” and then he added laughing-face emojis.

So, let me get this straight. The wealthiest man in the world, with an extremely influential relationship with the President of the United States, decided it was smart to respond to allegations of hate by minimizing the Nazis and the Holocaust with word-play.

We may be living in an increasingly post-truth world, where politicians and other influential voices can deny what you have just read, seen or heard. Or they can try to normalize it by ignoring it. But as John Adams, the 2nd president of the United States, once said: “Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”

Let’s look at some facts:

Musk’s history with antisemitism

  • Musk most infamously responded to a tweet on Twitter/X that claimed Jewish communities are “pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.” Musk’s response to the tweet: “You have said the actual truth.”
  • Comparing three months before Musk purchased Twitter and three months after, antisemitic messages more than doubled.
  • Nine months ago, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) conducted research that showed that Twitter/X “Despite purported changes to its policy enforcement and the stated intent of its management, (Twitter) continues to host antisemitic threats and tropes.”
  • As a CNN analysis offered, “…as the owner of X, [Musk] has chosen to defend racists’ free speech over the targets’ rights to not be harassed, even going so far as to threaten to sue the ADL for defamation after the organization said antisemitism had surged on X after Musk took over the platform more than a year ago.”
  • Referring to Germany’s AfD political party, which the ADL calls an “extremist, anti-immigrant party,” Musk said, “Only AfD can save Germany, end of story. People really need to get behind AfD, otherwise things are going to get very, very much worse in Germany.”
  • As the ADL explains, this same AfD party – seemingly Musk’s favorite German political party — has 1) used the banned-in-Germany phrase “Everything for Germany,” the slogan of the Nazi stormtroopers, 2) minimized the Holocaust by offering “Hitler and the Nazis are just a speck of bird poop in more than 1,000 years of successful German history.” 3) called for Germany to stop atoning for Nazi crimes and make a “180-degree turn” in how it remembers its past.

THE FAR RIGHT-WING RESPONSE TO MUSK’S NAZI SALUTES

  • A chapter of the White Lives Matter, a nationalist hate group, posted on Telegram “Thanks for (sometimes) hearing us Elon. The White Flame will rise again.”
  • Right-wing commentator, Evan Kilgore, offered “Did Elon Musk just Heil Hitler…We are so back.”
  • The Proud Boys Ohio chapter posted a clip of the Musk video to its Telegram channel with the text, “Hail Trump.”
  • According to Euronews, “Christopher Pohlhaus, the leader of the notorious neo-Nazi group Blood Tribe, posted the clip of Musk’s salute on Telegram with the caption: “I don’t care if this was a mistake. I’m going to enjoy the tears over it.”
  • Andrew Torba, founder of the far-right Christian Nationalist social media platform, Gab, enthused: “Incredible things are happening already lmao.”

The American James Whitcomb Riley (1849-1916) once wrote: “When I see a bird that walks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck.” Makes sense, no?

For this Musk/Nazi controversy, while it may be awkward, I think we can revise Riley’s statement by saying “If it looks like a Nazi salute — and it comes from someone who has dabbled in antisemitism and supports far-right causes – it’s a Nazi salute.”

Even if Musk himself, Trump and Netanyahu refuse to acknowledge it. I choose to believe my “lying eyes.” It was a Nazi salute. Twice.

There, that wasn’t so hard, was it?

About the Author
A native of Boston, Martin has lived and worked in the US, China, Japan, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and Singapore. He has been a global communications leader helping numerous Fortune 500 brands and companies. He has built and managed global offices for IPG/Weber Shandwick, Edelman, Burson, Ruder Finn among others. A graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School and Brandeis University, Martin ran the $65M American presence at Expo 2010 Shanghai, the largest world’s expo ever. He is most passionate about the Boston Red Sox baseball team and teaching his young daughters about the joys of being Jewish.
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