Elon Musk raised his right arm at a particularly alarming angle following his speech at Donald Trump’s 2025 presidential inauguration. Since then, many have labeled the gesture a ‘Nazi salute’ but Elon’s father has come to his defense with a bizarre explanation.
Elon Musk has been causing controversy
The richest man in the world has certainly struggled to stay out of the news in the past couple of months.
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As a close friend to President Donald Trump, he was appointed a ‘special government employee’ and executive of the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and has been taking controversial decisions to cut federal spending.
When did he make the ‘Nazi salute’?
Musk made the headlines early on in his time in the government by placing his right hand over his heart before raising it to a particularly alarming angle during Trump’s inauguration ceremony in January.
Critics have recognized it as the Nazi salute, but Musk himself denied this.
Elon Musk denied this on X/Twitter
Taking to X/Twitter, Musk quickly denied having done the salute and said people were playing political games. He wrote, “The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is sooo tired.”
His father also came to his defense
The tech mogul’s father, Errol Musk, is a well-known South African politician and businessman, and has responded to his son’s gesture in an interview with Al Arabiya.
The father’s explanation was certainly bizarre, as he said his son did it to show that he “meant no harm”.
Errol was asked about his reaction
As the interviewer asked him about the anger that surrounded his son’s gesture, Errol Musk said, “Nonsense. Elon is a terrible public speaker, he has a lot to learn. I struggled with it at the beginning of my career when I was elected to the city council.”
He cited the difficulty of public speaking
“You have to stand up and talk to a bunch of very wise people all starring at you. Your nerve goes, it doesn’t matter if you’ve written your notes down. Your eyes don’t read… you become blurred,” he added.
“Knowing him as well as I do… I could see he was struggling to get through his speech as fast as possible and to try and look as charming as possible, as he could. But he struggles. He hasn’t reached the incredibly smooth level of people like yourself [the interviewer] who have years of experience.”
Errol Musk then also spoke about the salute
Talking about the salute itself, Errol Musk said, “It was an international salute we have had for the last 10,000 years, perhaps more. The old German hail Caesar, of course, emanated from, no doubt, the Persians, the Sumerians, and so on.”
“It simply meant my right hand is empty. I do not carry a weapon,” he added.
Musk has shown support to the AfD party
Elon Musk has shown public support to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) political party since the inauguration speech. The party finished second in polls in the February elections in Germany.
The co-leader of AfD, Alice Weidel, shared that Musk had given her a call after the poll results to “personally congratulate her” on them.
