It's wild how "Elon did a Nazi salute" is now taken as an unquestioned truth. Most of the time here, false or exaggerated statements are "source?"-d and nitpicked to death, but not this one because so many people want it to be true.
He's a guy who supports the AFD, who has said "German people are too focused on the past and should get rid of national guilt" or something along these lines. He definitely spends a lot of time online regurgitating 4chan like memes (which fine, I do that too, but I'm not a world leader) and acts and talks like a person who is obsessed with white demographics in Western societies.
He has a reputation of someone who would plausibly do that as a playful nod towards his terminally online fanbase. That's the issue. His reputation makes it believable. Whether he really meant to or not has little to do with that fact. Ultimately one's reputation is everything in democratic politics
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/20/trump-elo...
He did it deliberately, he did it with gusto, and he did it twice just to make sure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smQNNo2a9xc
These guys loved it: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/elon-mus...
And so does this guy: https://www.reddit.com/r/facepalm/comments/1i68puj/have_we_l...