I saw the screenshot above on Reddit on Monday. My initial reaction was “there HAS to be some context I’m missing here“. Then I saw the video, and it was worse than I thought. Without reading about it at all, I thought “if that’s not the Nazi salute then I don’t know what the Nazi salute is“. There are a few interesting points here to me.
On Elon
Briefly, I honestly don’t like writing about Elon because getting a reaction is what he wants. The posts about him in the early days of Wait But Why were awe-inspiring and I always really liked him as a visionary. He began to turn shortly before buying Twitter and really embraced his whole persona as a troll. Then, as Trump’s campaign began ramping up, he fully committed to doing whatever he could to make Trump win. Most would say, including myself, that this was mostly for power.
I went from a huge fan 8 years ago to finding him mostly intolerable. Originally a huge proponent for free speech and political fairness, it feels like he’s become what he was fighting against in that he’s using his massive wealth to influence the country. He also seems addicted to being online and caring what people think of him. I’m sure he would deny all that, but when you’re rich, famous, successful, etc. I think you’re typically detached from reality, and he seems especially so.
The Intent
For the ‘gesture’ itself, it’s not worth litigating whether he meant to do it or not, as it will lead nowhere. When I watched it, it looked like something an 8th grader would do at a school assembly thinking it was funny but also having plausible deniability. It feels he’s at the point where he would never admit to doing something wrong publicly like that. Perhaps with engineering a rocket at SpaceX he would, but as a public figure related to things like ‘fighting wokeness’, he would never. I don’t think he’s a Nazi regardless.
The Backlash
There are a zillion articles, tweets, videos, etc. dissecting it with one side saying it was a Nazi salute and the other side saying no he’s just autistic.
But I noticed today on r/NBA that they’re no longer allowing posts from X. This is spreading now through a lot of sub Reddits; trying to hit him where it hurts and turn people away from X. I know Reddit is wildly left, but this isn’t r/LGBTQIA, this is r/NBA, not exactly what I’d picture as woke.
Overall it’s a small action, but I was surprised and even a little impressed at the idea / execution of this. I don’t think this will sink X, but it’s a start. I think it’s possible that we look back in 5-10 years and point to this as the start of the downfall of X. Some would say that’s ridiculous and some would say Elon buying X was the beginning of it’s downfall.
My Take
All this made me ask myself, what would Elon have to do for ME to stop using X? As someone who really tries not to overreact to things, my first thought this time was meh. But the more I think about it, I do think there’s some legitimacy to saying “he just fucking Nazi saluted at Trump’s Inauguration and refuses to acknowledge it“. I’m not someone who thinks Trump is Hitler, and I think people saying that are insane, but this was… pretty ridiculous.
I’d stop using X if Elon literally wore a KKK mask to the inauguration. What if he quoted Mein Kampf at it? Probably. If you’d told me a week ago he’d do the Nazi salute (or something that could be interpreted as such) at it, I probably would’ve said I’d consider getting off X. In fact I’d already considered getting off X, partially because of Elon and partially because I don’t think it makes my life better, but this is just another kick in the rear-end.
Elon has obviously done some amazing things with his companies. Even with purchasing Twitter some worthy things were revealed. If he does DOGE and makes some massive improvement to government efficiency, I’m still all for it. But at this point, him as a public figure seems to be doing more harm to the country’s discourse than good.
Whether I actually stop using X remains to be seen, but at this point I don’t think anyone is overreacting if they stop.
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