Senior Advisor to the President of the United States Elon Musk has apparently performed the Nazi salute at President Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20, 2025. Along with him, Executive and former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon has also been accused of doing the Nazi salute while he was giving a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference on February 20, 2025.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) states that the Nazi salute is performed in order to honor Adolf Hitler back in Germany while it was under the rule of Hitler and his Nazi Party. The Nazi or Hitler salute action is simply having an outstretched right arm while also having the palm facing downwards. With this being said, both Musk and Bannon have been receiving backlash from all around the world for supposedly doing said action.
At Trump’s inauguration, Musk went out on stage to make a speech to the crowd that was there. “I just want to say thank you for making it happen,” and according to The New York Times, Musk “slapped his right hand on his chest before shooting his arm diagonally upward, palm facing down.” Seconds later, after turning around for the audience to see his motion once more, he says “my heart goes out to you,” and repeats the salute. Although Musk was making a gesture saying his thanks to the audience, social media users across the globe have had different reactions towards his actions.
Like Musk, Bannon, only a month later, has supposedly performed the Nazi salute. At CPAC, according to Newsweek, Bannon had repeated the idea for Trump to run for president unconstitutionally once more for a third term in 2028. Furthermore, he yelled out towards the crowd that they will never “surrender,” and he continued to chant “fight, fight, fight” before he raised his right arm with his palm facing down.
Both Musk and Bannon are being attacked by major groups and advocates that are anti-fascism.
According to AP, Kurt Braddock, who is a professor at American University that studies extremism, radicalization and terrorism said that Musk’s gesture was a fascist salute, “and people shouldn’t doubt what they saw.”
While ADL had quickly responded to Bannon’s presumed salute on X saying that “Steve Bannon’s long and disturbing history of [adding fuel to] antisemitism and hate, threatening violence, and empowering extremists is well known and well documented by ADL and others. We are not surprised, but are concerned about the normalization of this behavior.”
“Steve Bannon speaking at the 2025 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland” by Gage Skidmore (CC by 2.0)
Opposing these ideas, Musk and Bannon had people there for them to help straighten out the allegations.
ADL said that Musk’s salute was an “awkward gesture” and he was just trying to appreciate the Trump supporters. This goes along with how, according to BBC, Musk’s representative in Italy, Andrea Stroppa, posted on X saying, “That gesture, which some mistook for a Nazi salute, is simply Elon, who has autism, expressing his feelings.”
As well as Musk having ADL protect him, Bannon had someone speaking for his defense. As indicated in AP, “CPAC Chairman Matt Schlapp defended Bannon on X, saying that Bannon participated in the passing of resolutions in strong support of Israel and in opposition to antisemitism as they kicked off the conference.” Schlapp also continued further with his statement writing, “I stand w Israel and Bannon.”
To defend themselves, Musk and Bannon had decided to speak up about the controversy in order to clear their names.
Musk has posted on X responding to the backlash saying, “The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is sooo tired” and that his critics need to have “better dirty tricks.”
In a response to the allegations, Bannon had told a French journalist, according to AP, that his gesture was not a Nazi salute, and that it was “a wave like I did all the time.” He also said, “I do it at the end of all my speeches to thank the crowd.”
Despite their responses to the backlash, the controversy regarding the gestures is ongoing.
