Elon Musk isn’t doing himself any favors at the minute…
As you’re probably aware, Musk caused quite a stir at Donald Trump’s inauguration after he made a questionable gesture.
If you’ve somehow missed it, the incident occurred at Washington D.C.’s Capital One Arena.
During a speech about humanity’s future on Mars, Musk struck an impassioned tone, at one point pounding his chest and extending his right arm upward at an angle.
While turning toward an American flag, he repeated the gesture, prompting cheers from the audience.
“My heart goes out to you,” Musk said. “It is thanks to you that the future of civilization is assured. Thanks to you, we’re gonna have safe cities, finally safe cities. Secure borders, sensible spending. Basic stuff. And we’re gonna take ‘Doge’ to Mars.”
The gesture, however, quickly drew criticism online, with some comparing it to the notorious Nazi salute.
Musk, of course, has denied any wrongdoing.
He took to X to refute the allegations, dismissing them as part of what he referred to as a “dirty tricks campaign” against him.
“Frankly, they need better dirty tricks. The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is so tired,” Musk wrote.
Well, he appears to have a new line of defense now and for some reason has dragged Taylor Swift into the argument.
As the fallout continued, Musk retweeted two doctored images of Taylor Swift that appeared to mimic the controversial gesture.
The images featured Swift with her right arm raised, along with captions such as “My god. Not her too” and “Does this mean Swifties = Hitler youth?”
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The images, however, were debunked by social media users who pointed out that they were manipulated screenshots from a 2014 performance in New York, during which Swift was blowing a kiss to her fans.
context is a wonderful thing pic.twitter.com/w3mPCPdnZB
— sammie 🙂 (@sammiemac__) January 22, 2025
The images had been taken out of context to match the Nazi salute’s arm position, per Newsweek.
Fans of the singer quickly came to her defense, with many calling for Swift to take legal action against Musk.
“This is the one time I’m gonna actually say this, but Swifties… This is your f****** moment to shine. Rise up on this fool!” one Reddit user wrote, while others criticized Musk for what they perceived as an “obsession” with Swift.
If we’ve learned anything in the past, it’s that Swifties are an incredibly powerful, dedicated bunch.
Musk has not issued a formal explanation for his actions, instead responding with retweets and comments, including a post stating: “The radical leftists are really upset that they had to take time out of their busy day praising Hamas to call me a Nazi.”
Regardless of his intentions, the gesture was a really weird thing to do.
