During a speech on Inauguration Day, the leader of the newly established Department of Government Efficiency made a bizarre movement that set off alarms. But Musk fits in fine with the other members of the new Trump Administration.
Yesterday during inauguration events, DOGE head Elon Musk was excited. Really excited.
So excited, in fact, that he made a strange gesture. Where have you seen this before? Are you getting flashbacks to casual drug use and plastic lunch trays? Prison? No, high school. Social Studies, specifically. Musk veiled this motion as a sort of ‘toss’ of his heart to the crowd. But that angle? Let’s check out the geometry here:
Elon Musk seems to be a classicist when it comes to Nazi salutes. Ninety-degree angle, very passionate, but still maintaining his signature crazed movements. Musk claims that his detractors need ‘better dirty tricks’ as defenders have cited his autism, a factor that’s been discredited by several online creators with autism. Coincidentally, Musk has recently been plugging a far-right political party in Germany that puts the Brothers of Italy to shame.
Among a cabinet with members who have individually antagonized Black and Brown folks in their own respective careers, does it really matter if it was intentional? After all, as Forest Gump might say, Nazism is as Nazism does. Musk is in the “reich” company, as most of Trump’s cabinet has public, credible accusations of discrimination leveled against them.
Pete Hegseth, who is currently being considered for the position of secretary of defense by the senate, recently stoked controversy upon discussion of both racist comments and a potential white supremacist tattoo he disclosed during confirmation hearings. Aside from this, Hegseth has expressed himself to be a staunch critic of “wokeism,” decrying the renaming of landmarks and military bases to remove association with confederate military generals. Other cabinet members share Hegseth’s propensity for controversy, like health and human services pick Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has floated racist and antisemitic conspiracy theories regarding COVID-19.
Unilaterally, all of Trump’s picks take a collaborative, Voltron-esque approach to racist and discriminatory policy as every singular member of the cabinet seems to bring a distinctly intolerant energy to their post. From Linda McMahon’s support for historically racist private school vouchers to Pam Bondi’s championing of anti-immigrant legislation encouraging racial profiling, the administration’s goals are as white supremacist as they are anti-Black/immigrant/queer/trans.
Accusations are also sometimes not entirely related to the department assigned to Trump’s respective picks. For instance, energy pick Chris Wright’s company Liberty Energy settled a racial bias suit late last year, admitting no wrongdoing regarding accusations that managers turned a blind eye to racial harassment suffered by Black and Hispanic employees.
Among those without strong accusations against them specifically, members of Trump’s team like Marco Rubio and Doug Collins provide cover for the President’s racist comments. Rubio even famously deflected a question inviting him to condemn Proud Boys joining the Miami-Dade GOP Commission by pointing out the “communists and socialists” in the Democratic party.
Musk in particular has long been dogged with accusations of racism, antisemitism, sexism, transphobia, and just being painfully, off-puttingly bizarre. Musk has accepted conspiratorial statements related to trans folks and Jews, while also playing an outsized role in geopolitics with his endorsements of far-right political figures and organizations. Additionally, Musk has criticized both legitimate movements pushing for equality such as Black Lives Matter and illegitimate organizations like Anti-Defamation League (ADL), who came to the billionaire’s defense in a post to X.com (formerly Twitter).
“Unfortunately, the ADL’s actions are not entirely shocking. We’ve long known that the ADL is not a civil rights organization, it only masquerades as one,” said the local Jewish Voice for Peace chapter in a statement on January 22.
Musk’s disdain for pronouns and anything related to trans/nonbinary gender identity has also had a considerable effect on his family/personal life. His daughter, Vivian Jenna Wilson, has dropped ‘Musk’ from her last name, disowning him over his transphobic and racist behavior.
Musk, in response, has publicly misgendered and dead-named his daughter, stating “I lost my son, essentially […] dead, killed by the woke mind virus.”
The tech giant’s Nazi salute might have been shocking for some, but wasn’t surprising for those familiar with both Musk and Trump’s political brand. As the administration takes power to begin a new era of white supremacist fascism in America, fascist loyalties are put on full display as the new emperors feign awkwardness while offering a Roman salute.
