- February 27, 2025
Musk, Bannon should know better, a Nazi salute is still a Nazi salute
There seems to be a new fad among top Trump world personalities speaking at right-wing events: raising a rigid arm with the palm down, drawing big headlines, only to later vehemently deny that they were making the Nazi salute.
That’s what Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and arguably Trump’s most influential aide, did a month ago. And that’s what Stephen K. Bannon, Trump’s former chief White House strategist and Mexican actor and right-wing activist Eduardo Verástegui, did at the Feb. 20 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) outside Washington D.C.
At first, many of us gave them the benefit of the doubt when they said they were innocently waving at the crowd and caught at an unfortunate angle by the cameras. But, after Musk’s hand salute made front page news around the world, such excuses sound increasingly unconvincing.
Public figures can no longer plead ignorance to the loaded symbolism of the Nazis’ rigid-armed gesture. It’s not the usual way of waving at a crowd, and it hasn’t been since Adolf Hitler murdered millions of people he considered racially inferior in the 1940s.
Responding to critics of his hand salute, Musk wrote on his X account; “Frankly, they need better tricks. The ‘everyone is Hitler” attack is so tired.”
It didn’t read like an apology to anyone who may have been offended. Rather, it sounded like a statement taking the whole episode lightly, and blaming others for the backlash.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), an anti-racism advocacy group, initially said on Jan. 20 that Musk had probably made an “awkward gesture…not a Nazi salute.’” But days later, after Musk posted a similar joking statement mocking liberal media for accusing people of being Nazis, the ADL said it was “inappropriate and offensive” for Musk “to make light” of the Holocaust.
I don’t know what went through Musk’s mind when he raised his hand in what appeared to be the Nazi salute. It may have been a deliberate provocation to make headlines – he seems to be addicted to being in the spotlight lately – or an unintended hand movement.
But Bannon’s and Verástegui’s stiff hand salutes at the CPAC conference are much harder to justify. It’s hard to believe they didn’t know the media attention they would get, and the controversy they would spark.
Bannon said he had “waved … as I always do in my motivational speeches.”
Jordan Bardella, the head of France’s far-right National Rally party, canceled his speech at the CPAC conference citing that “one of the speakers provocatively made a gesture referring to Nazi ideology.”
The ADL said later that “Steve Bannon’s long and disturbing history of stoking antisemitism and hate, threatening violence, and empowering extremists is well known.” It added, “we are not surprised, but concerned about the normalization of this behavior.”
Claudio Grossman, former dean of American University’s Law School and a member of the U.N. International Law Commission, told me that “These people are public figures. They know what these symbols mean. There are many ways to wave at the crowd that don’t have that connotation.”
I agree. If Musk’s, Bannon’s and Verástegui’s hand salutes were unintentional. In that case, they should not only apologize to the survivors of the Holocaust and their descendants but take concrete actions to distance themselves from racist movements.
Musk could start by withdrawing his vocal support for far-right European political parties.
In Germany’s Sunday elections, he was a vocal supporter of the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany party, parts of which have been labeled as extremist by Germany’s intelligence services.
More importantly, Trump himself should ask his followers to stop flirting with extremist symbols for attention or political gain. And Trump should stop normalizing racial hatred, such as when he falsely suggested that most Mexican immigrants are criminals and rapists or when he wrongly accused Haitian immigrants of eating people’s pets like cats and dogs.
Intentionally or not, these gestures and statements normalize racial hatred, which is the prologue to the kind of racial violence that led to some of humanity’s worst atrocities. Let’s stop this craziness right now, before it’s too late.