Musk:
-supposedly has autism
-autistic people sometimes make weird faux paus
To me, it looks like it’s clearly a Hitler salute and the logical conclusion is he’s a white supremacist. But I am just wondering if everyone else sees this that way with no room for it being a result of autism and definitely that.
Is there any possibility it could have been accidental? Or was he doing a Hitler salute, then “oh it was an accident” (wink) sort of thing? Did he apologize?
Lots of people on lemmy are really smart so I’m interested to read what people think.
The whole thing makes me really uncomfortable with buying from companies that have x profiles. I just don’t see how that coukd be accidental and it seems like no one cares.
There was this period before WWII when stuff started happening to reduce the rights of minorities, but they weren’t being killed blatantly. Is this where we are? I feel more scared to be in America now.
He absolutely knew what he was doing. His fans thought we were being hyperbolic when we said he was a fascist a decade ago. His fans are idiots
Have you actually watched it? It was clearly a fascists/nazi salute. People who say otherwise simply don’t want to admit it.
This. It’s the new litmus test for Nazi apologists.
I did watch it and it scared me. No companies are cancelling twitter accounts, no one is crushing their Teslas into a cube, everyone just seems apathetic (except AOC)
I thought it looked kind of like he was flailing like an idiot. If it was a nazi salute (which is definitely possible) then it was a poorly done one (which tracks for him).
No. In my opinion.
He has demonstrated a propensity for political action up to and including world changing meddling in democracies.
His person demands enough yearly salary from Tesla to cure cancer.
He cites history and in my recollection claims no ignorance of history.
It may be technically possible that it was a faux pas, but it is not feasibly a faux pas and is inexcusable even if it was one.
Yes, it’s possible, but he’s a spoiled right wing idiot edge lord, so I’d take it at face value.
Yea sure - but it doesn’t matter. It could have mattered but his reaction to the reaction means it doesn’t.
If you accidentally do a nazi salute and then someone says “Hey bro, you really shouldn’t do a nazi salute” and another dude says “Hey bro, white power! I’m glad you’re on our side” and your immediate reaction isn’t “Oh fuck guys, I didn’t know that was a nazi salute, I fucking hate nazis” then, well, you did a nazi salute.
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Elon did a thing.
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People said “That’s a nazi thing”.
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Elon didn’t immediately say “No, I didn’t do the nazi thing.”
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∴ Elon is a nazi.
It’s also not like the fucker doesn’t have the ability to issue a statement correcting the public perception. He literally owns fucking X and the media salivate over his press releases.
It’s crazy to me that people are denying it.
If you accidentally do a nazi salute and then someone says “Hey bro, you really shouldn’t do a nazi salute”
I like to think about how a person like that would react if they accidentally “acted gay”. Can you imagine how much they would trip over themselves trying to make sure people knew it was a mistake?
If you don’t have that level of response to being called a Nazi, you’re probably a Nazi.
And if they work that hard to make sure everyone knows they’re not gay, then bonus! You also found out that they’re homophobic.
No, I don’t agree with this at all.
I grew up in the 90s when being gay was “bad” (societys words, not mine). I live in Cleveland, but a suburb of Cleveland is Lakewood. San Fransisco is Americas gayest city. Lakewood is (was?) Americas second gayest city (at least in the 90s it was).
I lived right on the Lakewood border. About 7 streets away. And just to give an idea of how anti-gay the 90s were, I can remember a guy getting handcuffed to a chain link fence, and beaten by 4 men with bats. Beaten to literal death. With his dead body lay prone and still handcuffed from 2:30am until 7am on a busy street until a mother called the police as she walked her 5 year old to school (this was 2 blocks from an elementary school)
That’s the environment I grew up in. People CONSTANTLY accused me of being gay. I’m not. I never have been gay. But I grew up being taught you better make sure you deny it. If nothing else, so people don’t beat you.
Now I realize, we no longer live in that social environment. But I also assume Jews in Europe in the 1960s still would downplay the fact they were Jewish. Sure, the nazis weren’t a thing anymore, but if you’d seen the holocaust you wouldn’t take chances either.
Plus, being a teenager in the 90s, I thought “If the girls think I’m gay, I’ll never get laid…” which was true. They still thought I was gay, and I didn’t get to date until after high school.
And thats how I stay today. I have enough of an uphill battle to dating. I don’t need women disqualifying me for something that isn’t true.
Now if YOU wanna be gay, go ahead. I always think if more guys are gay, that makes things easier for me.
I’m not saying that just because someone says you’re gay, you can’t correct them without being homophobic. I’m saying that the people that people that go out of their way to make sure everyone knows they’re not gay, who get offended at the idea of being mistaken for gay are acting homophobic.
I grew up in approximately the same era as you in a very conservative area, and yeah, there was a lot of homophobic behavior and slurs. But if someone asked if I was gay in this day and age, I think anything more than a quick correction is over-reacting.
But hey, that’s just my opinion; you’re welcome to yours. Have a good day friend!
Based on your persuasive arguments, ive decided to be gay.
That’s so gay
Good choice. We have the best sex.
This is the weirdest homophobic and also misogynistic take I’ve read. You took “I’ve got nothing against the gaus, but…” to a new deranged level.
He’s like only part way there. I grew up in the 90s too when being gay was “bad”. In my younger years I would have absolutely said I’m not homophobic but would have made damn sure no one thought I was. Spoiler alert. It was homophobic even if I didn’t realize it. However in my older years I recognize that for what it was.
Point of order. He didn’t do a Nazi salute. He did two, within five seconds, on national television, at the inauguration.
You would think the crowd of people would have stepped in at that point but clearly they’re all in as well.
Great comparison.
<inAnAlternateReality>
Elon did a thing.
People said “That’s a nazi thing”.
Elon immediately said “No, I didn’t do the nazi thing.”
People said “we don’t believe you”.
∴ Elon is a nazi.
Elon didn’t immediately say “No, I didn’t do the nazi thing.”
He did though: https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1881746484229763524. My hypothesis: he practiced this and realized what reaction it would cause, and did it simply to hype himself up. The whole inauguration event in people minds is now associated with Elon doing “sieg heil” while being high on ketamine.
I’m not seeing him saying it. He did a “what about” and then blamed the media.
Also those are static images he’s showing. A video of those images would show very different hand motions.
I also couldn’t find him directly denying it, and you’re correct those examples in referenced image are no good - in the comments there are video versions of those showing none of them looking anywhere similar to what he did. There are other videos of Macron and Camala doing some gesture, but they are fetching their hand far up in front of them in more of a waving to audience way, so it doesn’t look like nazi salute.
First time in years I’ve seen the ‘therefor’ three dots!
∴ - copying to notes as I don’t think it’s available on Android keyboards.
I always just search the web for “<symbol> unicode” when I need something obscure. Then again I’m old ;_;
I’m British and I tried to plug something into it.
Don’t you know? Plugs go in the rear.
I didn’t even know it existed in the first place. I’m going to show my grandfather and see if he’s seen it before. I expect he has since he’s a retired english/history teacher
edit: he has seen it before, but he couldn’t remember what it meant.
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He was meddling with the afd in Germany, he’s proudly supports the apartheid in South Africa, and did a Nazi salute…
I mean, do we really need to spell it out for fucks sake?
He has been a public figure for over a decade and has a dedicated PR team. He knew exactly what he was doing. I have autism, I know what it is like, there is no chance I would ever do this.
A detail of note is that he denies having autism and prefers the term aspbergers which is not recognized by the DSM-5. This is interesting begans Hans Aspberger was an ardent eugenicist with nazi ties. Elon Musk is a fascist and has been for a long time.
Damn, I had no clue about the links between Asperger’s and the Nazi scientist. It’s a good thing that it’s not a diagnosis anymore, because of the whole nazi science thing.
A detail of note is that he denies having autism and prefers the term aspbergers which is not recognized by the DSM-5. .
Honestly more likely reason is that he was diagnosed with Asperger’s before DSM-5, which was released only 12 years ago, and is just more comfortable with the term over autism which is unfortunately often used in a derogatory manner.
But that’s an interesting note regardless hehe
I have very little doubt after seeing his hat months ago
What is that barely readable font?
I saw comparisons to a hitler book.
Looks like Harry Potter.
is this real?
If you do something horrible by accident, you apologize for it. The fact that he hasn’t, tells you everything you need to know.
First I’m not sure if he’s autistic or just saying “I’ve got Asperger’s so I’m allowed to be an asshole and you just need to deal.”
But let’s assume he is…
High functioning autism is not associated with involuntary Nazi salute gestures. It’s also not associated with the inability to learn the significance of the gesture.
So if autism is somehow related, then how would it be?
Well the “nice” option is he is going full 4-chan troll mode thinking it is hilarious without processing just how bad it is.
The other option is that he thought he did a credible cover to blow a dog whistle, but was unable to process that he was blowing a tuba instead.
In short, even if it was because of autism, it still almost certainly means it’s still quite on purpose, so it’s hardly an excuse that makes things any better.
Even if he mistakenly blew a dog tuba there seems to be very little long term damage caused, partly because our news cycle is saturated with equally disturbing behavior from others in positions of power
I can imagine him practicing in the mirror for hours to get exactly the right arm motion for a Nazi salute that is imperfect by just enough that some people will contemplate the possibility that it wasn’t one.
Exactly this. The gesture had the right amount of ambiguity so everyone would think of it what better suits their ideas
Zero ambiguity. Zero.
Musk is playing agent provocateur. He knows exactly who is offending. He knows how he will deny it and planted seeds of doubt to make his case. It’s a show of might. Elon gets off on the fact that he knows what his extreme wealth allows him to get away with but is offended at the same time that anyone might question his absolute power. In classic fascist fashion he will now insist himself, an extremely powerful and wealthy person immune to any law of any nation, is the victim here.
This type of behavior erodes at any good will people might like to inject into the political environment and keeps every one fighting each other rather then the obvious source of all the vitriol.
No.
Nah, as an autistic person who works with many autistic people (I am a support worker), no. Autistic people are able to miss things, mistake social cues, and so on, but blaming autism for a Nazi salute is absolutely bullshit. Not to mention that he has done tonnes of other stuff which is in line with a Nazi salute and this is just the last in a long line of behaviours, and his family history etc, yeah, not autism, just Nazi shit.
I guess if I am nit-picking, it’s very hard for a statistician to claim anything as having a zero possibility… of course a statement like that helps no one. These are my actual thoughts:
non-zero possibility
It is technically possible that Musk’s gesture was not a Nazi salute but rather something that looks similar. Fun fact, this is something that happened with S. Korea’s Megalian hand gesture issue (for example see this case: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2621gzvkdo), where ppl found the gesture in a lot of unexpected places. However, the Megalian gesture is a pretty common hand movement, whereas the Nazi salute… I mean I guess it could happen due to a really bad out-of-context dance choreography?? But that clearly wasn’t Musk’s case
“But I am just wondering if everyone else sees this that way with no room for it being a result of autism and definitely that.”
… I mean maybe?? I have weird Autistic intrusive thoughts sometimes but even then this is a bit… Honestly though, I don’t know if I should put any respect to someone who willingly know what a Nazi salute is, and then choose to do it in front of one of the most important political events in the world, twice in a row nontheless. I find it hard to believe such an act to be a faux pass and non-intentional. Heck even if it is completely unintentional, this would be ground for job termination and put on a blacklist for life for most job positions I know
“Is this where we are? I feel more scared to be in America now.”
Yeah I know… I seriously wonder why I am still in the US as well.
