Elon Musk was accused of performing a bizarre Nazi-style salute during a Donald Trump inauguration rally in Washington DC.
After Trump was sworn in as the 47th US President, the Tesla founder who is set to head the Department of Government Efficiency to hold government spending accountable, spoke to the crowd of supporters who were gathered at the Capital One Arena.
“This is what victory feels like,” Musk, who appeared visibly excited, said.
“And this was no ordinary victory. This was a fork in the road of human civilization,” he said to the crowd, adding, “You know, there are elections that come and go. Some elections are, you know, important, some are not. But this one, this one really mattered.”
He then thanked those present.
“And I just wanna say, ‘thank you, thank you for making it happen. Thank you,'” he said, before slapping his chest with his palm, grunting, and raising his hand in a gesture that some online have compared to a Nazi salute.
“What did he just do at the end of this seven-second clip?” a shocked user asked.
Another claimed, “Elon Musk just Sieg Heiled on stage.”
Despite the uproar among netizens on Musk’s own platform, X, it seemed that the moment was one of excitement and festivity, rather than an intentional reference to Adolf Hitler. The “Hitler Salute,” or “Sieg Heil,” is a phrase meaning “Hail Victory” in English, notoriously associated with Hitler’s rule from 1933 to 1945.
Large crowds of people who made their way across the nation to see Trump’s inauguration gathered at the Capital One Arena after the ceremony was pushed indoors by frigid temperatures.
It is projected to be the coldest Inauguration Day since 1985 when former President Ronald Reagan, too, was sworn in inside the Capitol Rotunda. Trump’s swearing-in ceremony, like Reagan’s, was televised.
Upon being sworn in, Trump has already lived up to the border crackdown threats he made during his campaign trail by issuing executive orders that include the immediate termination of outgoing President Joe Biden’s mass parole program and other humanitarian programs for asylum-seekers. Migrants in Mexico were seen bursting into tears after they were told that their asylum appointments were canceled moments after Trump was sworn in.
Trump’s inauguration was a melting pot of Silicon Valley billionaires. Notably, Musk, Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, Sam Altman, and Mark Zuckerberg were among the attendees who cheered the President on as he addressed the crowd.
Source : https://www.the-express.com/news/politics/161085/elon-musk-hitler-salute-trump-inauguration
