Musk, the world’s richest man and a close ally of President Trump, was speaking at the Capital One Arena in Washington when he made the gesture.
“My heart goes out to you. Thanks to you, the future of civilization is secured,” he said after the second one-handed salute.
There was an immediate reaction on social media.
Claire Auben, a historian who specializes in Nazism in the United States, said Musk’s gesture was a “sieg heil,” or Nazi salute.
“My professional opinion is that you are fine, you should believe your eyes,” she wrote on X, referring to those who thought the gesture was an overt reference to Nazis.
Ruth Ben-Ghiatt, a professor of history at New York University, said: “The historian of fascism is here. It was a Nazi salute, and a very militant one at that.”
Andrea Stroppa, a close confidant of Musk who has linked him to Italy’s far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, according to Italian media, posted a clip of Musk with the caption: “The Roman Empire returns, starting with the Roman salute.”
The Roman salute was widely used in Italy by Benito Mussolini’s fascist party before later being adopted by Adolf Hitler in Germany.
Stroppa later deleted his post, according to Italian media. He later wrote that “this gesture, which some mistook for a Nazi salute, is simply Elon, who suffers from autism, expressing his feelings by saying, ‘I want to give you my heart,'” he said.
“That’s exactly what he said into the microphone. ELON DOESN’T LIKE EXTREMISTS!”
The gesture comes as Musk’s politics shift further to the right. He recently made statements in support of Germany’s far-right AfD party and Britain’s anti-immigration Reform UK party.
But some have come to his defense, including the Anti-Defamation League, an organization founded to fight anti-Semitism.
“Looks like Elon Musk made an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute,” the group posted on X.
Musk has become one of Trump’s close allies and has been appointed to co-head what the president has called the Department of Government Efficiency.
