Pete Hegseth, Elon Musk, and the Things That Only Look Like Nazi Things Because of Coincidence For Real

The coincidence theorists are at it again, this time in reference to Elon Musk giving what looks awfully like a Nazi salute at Trump’s inauguration the day before yesterday. Musk has not denied that’s what it was, mind you, but that has not stopped Musk’s defenders from promising us that what he did — whatever it was — was not a Nazi salute. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), for example, declared this simply “an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute,” although it should be noted that what Musk was attempting to communicate with this movement is not explained in the slightest.

I am not going to sit here and pretend it is impossible that Musk meant something else through using this gesture, but I do wish to make it clear that the evidence of this being the case seems to be rather lacking. One Musk defender, a fellow by the name of Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry, wrote an entire thread on Twitter documenting the history of the Roman salute and how it pre-dates the Nazis by a few centuries. Although that may be true, the question of if Musk knew that at the time of engaging in this action never gets answered, even though if he didn’t this information would be irrelevant to his intentions.