Stop the "Elon Gave a Nazi Salute" Nonsense

We need to be serious grown-ups.

Photo by John Matychuk on Unsplash

(Audio version here)

Elon Musk can be a worrying figure in contemporary politics, both for Americans and internationally. As the richest man in the world who owns the social media platform that is now the primary news source in 140 countries and is so closely involved with the new Trump Administration that he is now often referred to as “President Musk” and diplomats around the world formulate policies for fruitful engagement with him despite his not having been elected by anybody, people are right to be concerned about his level of influence.

People would be right to be concerned even if Musk were the most level-headed, fact-orientated and thoughtful of political advisors, public political discourse moderators, leading figures in the world of technology and employers of hundreds of thousands of people. But he is not. Instead, he appears to be highly impulsive, have a tendency to lash out personally at or cut off people he feels have slighted him, fabricate self-aggrandising representations of his personal brand and be much more interested in reductionist and totalising political narratives that support his views than the factual reality of any matter. (See this, this, this, this and this for just a few examples). Despite his undoubtable excellence in fields of engineering and space technology, he presents himself on the public stage very much as an impetuous and often vindictive child.

This makes it especially important that those who are concerned about his influence over the policies of the most powerful country in the world and the largest forum for public political discourse, and the impact the combination of these factors can have on the rest of the world conduct themselves as serious and responsible adults in their critiques of him.

Admirers and supporters of Mr. Musk who believe these concerns to be unfounded range from thoughtful, well-informed politically engaged people who support his general views and overall aims and believe that the benefits his expertise, his stances and his influence bring outweigh any personal foibles to utter lunatics, wedded to ideological narratives divorced from reality and engaging in tactics common to both the woke left and the woke right. It is important that his thoughtful and serious critics engage in good faith with his thoughtful and serious supporters and address the reality of his influence in ways that focus on what is true, what is significant and what has real impact on the world.

It is already the case that Musk’s least thoughtful and serious supporters on the woke right typically shut down any criticism of him by claiming it to be a symptom of “Musk Derangement Syndrome” (MDS). This accusation, when made spuriously, functions in a very similar way to the woke left’s use of the DiAngelo style concept of ‘whiteness’ (an unconscious drive to uphold the systems of white supremacy for one’s own political benefit). That is, it functions as a Kafka Trap in which any attempts to deny that one’s motivations in criticising Musk’s or DiAngelo’s ideas are caused by either of these pathologies are evidence of the pathologies. By formulating concepts of MDS or whiteness which contain within them the premise that any denial of them are evidence of the derangement or unconscious bias skewing the speaker’s judgement, it preemptively shuts down the possibility of any critique being legitimate. This kind of circular reasoning is not persuasive to reasonable, ethical people who care about what is true and share the stated aims of Musk to oppose censorship and dismantle governmental corruption or of DiAngelo to oppose racism and dismantle racial prejudice (my readers are likely to support both) but think that doing so in an evidence-based and consistently principled way is essential

Nevertheless, if one wishes to counter claims that any criticism of Musk is a manifestation of Musk Derangement Syndrome, it is important not to be deranged.

Unfortunately, a significant number of people on the woke left are currently being deranged over an incident in which Musk, at President Trump’s inauguration, struck his chest with his hand and then thrust out his arm to the audience saying “My heart goes out to you.” The gesture, captured mostly in stills or very short contextless clips, was immediately ceased upon as replicating a Nazi salute. Immediately, both mainstream media and social media began arguing fiercely over whether or not this was the message Musk intended to send. Many on the identitarian left argued that he fully intended it to send an overt Nazi signal as a threat of what was to come while others opined that it was a coded gesture that would be recognised as such by fellow Nazis (often implied to be ubiquitous among Trump supporters). Others, from various positions, argued that it was a trolling gesture used to attempt to produce outrage from the woke left and get them to respond in deranged and hyperbolic ways so that Musk could illustrate how much the new administration is needed to stamp out woke insanity. Some supporters of Musk argued that his autism is responsible for awkward and socially inept hand gestures and those among them who engage in ‘woke’ tactics added that any suggestions to the contrary are ableist. More reasonable people pointed out that people do, in fact, raise their aims outwards and upwards to an audience quite naturally to indicate addressing them without any Nazi connotations and easily found images of admired Democrat candidates doing so. Musk himself dismissed it as the old, tired, “Everyone is Hitler” attack.

This entire ‘controversy’ is ridiculous.

It is extremely unlikely that Musk was signalling Nazi sympathies overtly, covertly or trollingly and overwhelmingly likely that he was simply making a hand gesture that illustrated the words “My heart goes out to you.” (Incidentally, this is not at all an autistic thing to do. Autism assessments look for a lack of correlation between spoken language and illustrator gestures, and if the woke right could stop saying that any criticism of Musk is anti-autistic ableism, that would be nice).

However, even if there is a possibility that he was deliberately making a Nazi salute, mindreading him as doing so and responding in a hyperbolic and overwrought way is not remotely helpful whatever the motivations were. Consider the reasonable responses people are likely to make to such interpretations in any scenario.

1. Musk was simply illustrating his heart going out to the people he was speaking to.

People will see the woke left doing its “Everybody who disagrees with me is a Nazi” thing again and the perception that it should not be taken seriously is strengthened.

2. Musk was trolling with the gesture and trying to provoke this response in order to illustrate how deranged ‘the left’ is.

Well done. You played right into that and consequently reduced the credibility of left-wing critiques of Musk including from those of us who are not deranged.

3. Musk really does have sympathies with Nazi ideology and intended to convey that he will influence the Trump administration in that direction.

This would be highly alarming and indicate a need to seriously and carefully scrutinise his policy recommendations and shore up your credibility so that you are taken seriously should you find indications of it. The worst thing to do is shriek “Nazi” spuriously and increase the tendency of reasonable people to assume that somebody being accused of being a Nazi has simply said something considered problematic using the tortuous reasoning of the Critical Social Justice Left and ignore it rather than have a look to see if they have, in fact, expressed views compatible with a genocidal antisemitic and/or ethnonational ideology.

Stop it.

There is never a good time for hyperbolic, overwrought and, yes, deranged accusations of Nazism, fascism or far-right beliefs and intentions based on little to no evidence, but of all the times when this is a terrible idea, this is probably the worst. The Trump administration is in power, Elon Musk has significant influence on it, the power and influence of X as a platform for news has never been higher and policies that impact not only Americans but the rest of the world are already underway. This is a time to be serious grown ups and carefully, thoughtfully and honestly scrutinise both policy decisions influenced by Elon Musk and the impact of his social media platform on the state of political discourse and what everyday people who vote and influence culture believe to be true and ethical. It is a time to be particularly conscientious when evaluating the views and actions of Musk, give him credit for anything positive and beneficial he achieves in an ethical way, and present any concerns that arise in a serious, well-evidenced and well-reasoned way.

If there is reason to be concerned about the power, influence and character of Elon Musk (and I suspect there is), the people who will need to be convinced of this will be serious, ethical, thoughtful, American conservatives who care about what is true and what is morally right, who are currently of the view that Musk is beneficial to their great nation (and hopefully the world) and are absolutely sick of the authoritarian irrationality and spurious name-calling of the Critical Social Justice left.

I beg you, please stop being deranged.