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Comment by rastignack | Hacker News Reader

I don’t think we need to lie or be disingenuous about this gesture, Elon is not known for his hate of Jewish people. I think this obviously fake take helps him.

There is enough to criticize in his actions.

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European countries are quite capable of making their own judgement about a gesture, especially when it would be illegal in France and Germany.

https://www.zeit.de/kultur/2025-01/elon-musk-hitler-salute-i...

German media has been extremely coy calling Elon out about it. You would think that they'd be all over this, but them phrasing it as questions and digging out the "roman salute" (that no one here has heard of before) has been an eye-opening experience.

Have they?

I mean, that was a link to a German newspaper and the headline is:

> A German Eye On Elon Musk's Hitler Salute (Yes, That's A Hitler Salute)

It's an opinion piece, and exceptions confirm the rule. Just search for German news articles on Google.de. See how many legit news outlets mention "Musk Hitlergruß" and how many more opt to beat around the bush when you search for "Musk Geste".

Do you even get a count of search results? They no longer include that number in my search results.

But I have just tried "Musk Geste" on google.de news tab (I don't know how Google is personalising either my search results or your results, but FWIW I'm in Berlin), and of the first page, 6/10 links explicitly call the gesture a "Hitlergruß" in the summary, and the other four call it that (or note that some people have called it that) in the body.

> Elon is not known for his hate of Jewish people.

You might not know him for that, but people who pay attention do.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/17/business/elon-musk-reveals-hi...

Guy who talks like a nazi, supports nazi parties, boosts nazis on his social media platform does a nazi salute and you still doubt what he meant?

Must has spent quite a lot of time recently supporting far right groups. Most likely he picked it up unconsciously.

Obviously this is room for a flame war, but I don’t think the poster was being deliberately malicious, rather it is perfectly reasonable to interpret the gesture as a nazi salute. You may disagree that it was.

We shouldn’t let that argument distract from the impact it has had on Tesla demand in Europe. For me personally it was the final straw and I won’t be buying one as I had hoped to.

Along with other actions certain to hit sales, and the lack of an apology (which would have been wise, even if you didn’t mean it as a nazi salute) suggests that Musk doesn’t care about Tesla car sales.

I suspect he knows the writing is on the wall for Tesla, so he’s betting on robotics as an escape hatch. I wonder if he’s also hoping tariffs against china will help vs their EVs. Either way, I don’t see much hope for Tesla right now.

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