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NEW YORK (AP) — Right-wing extremists are celebrating Elon Musk’s
straight-arm gesture during a speech Monday, although his intention wasn’t totally clear and some hate watchdogs are saying not to read too much into
it.

“I just want to say thank you for making it happen,” Musk said during a
speech at Capital One Arena, referring to Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election. Then he slapped his hand on his chest, extended his
arm straight out and up with his palm facing down.

“My heart goes out to you,” said Musk, after turning around to make a
similar gesture facing the other way.

Many social media users noticed that the gesture looked like a Nazi
salute. Musk has only fanned the flames of suspicion by not explicitly
denying those claims in a dozen posts since, though he did make light of
the criticism and lashed out at people making that interpretation.

“The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is sooo tired,” Musk posted on X several
hours after he left the stage.

Critics and fans alike of the Tesla CEO and world’s richest man were quick
to react to the gesture.

“The White Flame will rise again,” a chapter of the white nationalist
group White Lives Matter posted on Telegram.

“Maybe woke really is dead,” white nationalist Keith Woods posted on X.

“Did Elon Musk just Heil Hitler ...” right-wing commentator Evan Kilgore
posted on X. “We are so back.”

The Anti-Defamation League, an antisemitism and human rights watchdog,
called it an “awkward gesture” and urged caution in jumping to
conclusions. Other extremism monitors and experts pointed out it was
unclear what Musk was trying to convey to the crowd of Trump’s supporters
by thrusting his arm out.


“I’m skeptical it was on purpose,” said Jared Holt, a senior research
analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, which tracks online hate.
“It would be an act of self-sabotage that wouldn’t really make much sense
at all.”

Holt noted Musk specifically said his heart went out to the crowd. That
could indicate a sort of gesture of thanks to them.

Since Musk bought Twitter, now called X, the self-described “free speech absolutist” has faced criticism from hate-speech watchdogs for allowing extremist, dangerous and antisemitic comments to flourish on the social
media platform. His response has been to attack his critics, suing one
group unsuccessfully after advertisers fled X and threatening to sue
another, the Anti-Defamation League, which urged calm at what it called a “delicate moment” in its statement Monday.

“It seems that @elonmusk made an awkward gesture in a moment of
enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute, but again, we appreciate that people are on edge,” the ADL said in a statement. “In this moment, all sides should give
one another a bit of grace, perhaps even the benefit of the doubt, and
take a breath.”

Kurt Braddock, a professor of communication at American University who
studies extremism, radicalization and terrorism, said the gesture was a
fascist salute and “people shouldn’t doubt what they saw.”

“I know what I saw, I know what the response to it was among elements of
the extreme right including neo-Nazis, Braddock said. “And none of it is a laughing matter.”

Efraim Zuroff, the retired head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Jerusalem office and formerly the organization’s top Nazi hunter, said he also saw
it as Nazi salute, and that it happened at U.S. presidential inauguration celebration made it especially shocking to see.

“It’s totally improper, and it raises all sorts of questions regarding his motivations, or his ignorance,” he said in a telephone interview from
Israel. “This is America, the leader of the free world, the people who sacrificed 200,000 soldiers who died to defend Europe. He has to explain himself.”

In Europe where the fascist salute is associated with the hate, death and destruction of World War II, Musk’s arm gesture elicited outrage.

An Italian communist youth organization on Tuesday hung an effigy of Musk upside down in Milan’s Piazzale Loreto, where Mussolini’s body was hung
upside down after he was executed during the final days of World War II.
The organization, Cambiare Rotta (Change Course), noted in a Facebook post
that a photo of the effigy had been removed by the social media company.

“We are correctly a little afraid, because that image is scary,’’ author Filippo Ceccarelli told Italian La7 private television.

Known as the Roman salute in Italy, the straight-arm greeting officially adopted in 1925 by the dictator Benito Mussolini’s fascist regime is
banned in Italy though it is rarely prosecuted.

Musk’s representative in Italy, Andrea Stroppa, published the photo on X
with the words: “Roman Empire is back, starting with the Roman salute,” according to the news agency ANSA.

He later deleted the post, writing that Musk “is autistic,” and was
expressing his emotions but denying he was emulating fascism.

“He does not like extremists,’’ Stroppa wrote.

In France on Monday, more than 80 associations, including human rights, environmental and press freedom groups left X, though it is unclear if
Musk was the trigger or Trump’s inauguration. Several universities and
schools left X, too, as well as nationwide and local newspaper on various
sides of the political spectrum.

Brian Levin, founder of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, said even if it was
accidental, the gesture Musk did has the power to hurt people.

“When you’re a public figure at the highest echelons of power on
Inauguration Day, doing a salute like that is extraordinarily disturbing
and it calls for an explanation from Musk,” he said. “Points are made
about free speech. Well, along with free speech comes responsibility.”

Levin said some extremists will take the gesture regardless of its intent
as “some kind of not-so-subtle marching order.”

—-

Associated Press writers Sylvie Corbet in Paris, Colleen Barry in Milan,
David Rising in Bangkok and Ali Swenson in New York contributed to this
report.

—-

This story has been updated to correct the misspelling of the name of
Capital One Arena.

https://apnews.com/article/musk-gesture-salute-antisemitism- 0070dae53c7a73397b104ae645877535

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