Elon Musk defends hand gesture by sharing snaps of leaders and celebrities in similar poses

Elon Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur, recently found himself at the center of a controversy after a speech at Capitol One Arena, where a simple gesture was misinterpreted by some as a Nazi salute.
Amid severe backlash, Musk himself rubbished the claims bashing legacy media. Musk responded to the "Nazi" accusations on Tuesday, by echoing Libs of TikTok X channel which compared Musk's gesture to ones used by Barack Obama, Hilary Clinton, Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren. Quoting the post, Musk said, "The legacy media is pure propaganda," and asserting the Libs of TikTok channel as "the media now".

Libs of TikTok also hit back at Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, claiming she had made similar gestures. Elon Musk also jumped on the thread to clapback at AOC saying, "Haha this is amazing," with laughing emojis.

Prominent pro-Republican channel EndWokeness went on to draw parallel between Taylor Swift and Hitler in an attempt to defend Musk.

A law professor took to X to come with a theory claiming that it was actually a Roman salute for gratitude.

Several other Republican backers took to social media to defend Musk, dismissing allegations that the salute had anything to do with Nazis by drawing comparisons to other leaders, in a similar manner to Musk.
Musk had earlier also dismissed that accusation by referring to them as "dirty tricks". Quoting a post which attributed Musk's gesture as "“dirty tricks campaign”, the X owner had said, "Frankly, they need better dirty tricks. The “everyone is Hitler” attack is sooo tired."
The controversy began, during a speech at Capitol One Arena, Musk made a sweeping gesture while expressing his gratitude to the crowd. While his supporters saw it as an emotional display of thanks, critics interpreted the motion as resembling the infamous "Heil Hitler" salute.