WATCH: Elon Musk appears to give fascist salute during Trump inauguration celebration
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN mostly uses it as a primary-source link in long political arguments about the gesture, not as something to recommend.
What it is
A short PBS NewsHour clip of Elon Musk making a gesture at the post-inauguration celebration in January 2025, which many described as a fascist salute. The report includes the remarks he made just before it.
Recommended by 0 HN commenters across 0 different months, 2025 to 2026.
What Hacker News said
Cites moogly · 2025-02 · on “Philip Low Unmasking Musk”
What I haven't seen mentioned (and it's cut out of most videos online) is that he also paraphrased the "14 words" directly after. Sure, different enough to have plausible deniability, but I would bet money on that message hitting home in certain circles who know those words well. Nudge nudge, wink wink, and all that. [this video] [LINK] Then again, people are not admitting to themselves that it was two full-on Sieg Heils (regardless of the underlying reason for it), so this is less of a smoking gun and I don't even know why I'm writing this post.
Cites Xlythe · 2025-02 · on “Elon Musk's Demolition Crew”
Sure, happy to expand. Stepping back quite a bit, the US constitution divides up responsibilities between the Legislator (Congress), the Executive (President), and the courts (Supreme Court). The Legislator is given rights over declaring war, applying tariffs and levying taxes, federal budget, approving international treaties, and of course writing laws. Over the past 250 years, the legislative branch has slowly given the executive branch more discretion. In times of emergency, the legislative branch moves too slowly, so the executive branch is better suited to make snap decisions. Trump, as soon as he's taken office, immediately used these powers to declare an emergency at the border ( [LIN
Cites bayindirh · 2025-04 · on “Fire at Tesla dealership near Rome destroys 17 cars”
> I can show you a dozen conveniently freeze-framed images of prominent Democrats raising their arm in supposed "Nazi salutes". ...and I can show you a video of Elon Musk doing a supposed Nazi salute: [this video] This is from PBS, no more, no less...
Cites hayst4ck · 2025-04 · on “U.S. stock futures tumble indicating another plummet on Wall Street”
> The jury is still out on whether what you are saying is hyperbole The president of the Heritage Foundation said “we are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.” [LINK] -- [LINK] This is a direct quote from a major institution behind the current administration that is well known to be a major force for choosing judicial candidates for the GOP. I understand it feels like hyperbole, but that's not because it's hyperbolic, it's because it's hard to accept. Accepting it would cause a lot of grief and grief is disabling. Accepting it creates a sense of responsibility or a sense of helplessness, neither of which feel good. Accepti
Cites hayst4ck · 2025-04 · on “NIH freezes all research grants to Columbia University”
[LINK] But why was Columbia put first? It is in New York. More than twenty percent of its undergraduate students are Jewish. No matter the experiences or attitudes of these students, their university suddenly losing four hundred million dollars is unlikely to improve their education and life chances. Columbia students can speak for themselves. My guess is that Columbia was selected as the symbolic first target less because of the presence of antisemitism than because of the presence of Jews. And I think that this is something that actual American antisemites will immediately have grasped. The city of New York is coded for antisemites as Jewish. The antisemites in America, seeing Columbia and
Cites krisoft · 2026-01 · on “Tesla's Robotaxi data confirms crash rate 3x worse than humans even with monitor”
> You don't get to throw out "fondness for throwing Nazi salutes" slander, based on an hoax immediately debunked at the time, and then act like you're doing democracy a favor. Just to clarify. This is the video context: [this video] Are you claiming that this is not an accurate depiction of what happened on stage? (That is the video is in some form fake. A deep fake, or special effects, or an Elon impersonator or whatever.) Or are you claiming that the gesture seen is not a nazi salute?
Cites alterom · 2026-04 · on “EFF is leaving X”
>What do you mean _exactly_? Covering your statement is a shroud of vagueness doesn’t help form an opinion, only infuse more polarisation Oh come on. Everyone who's been paying attention enough to warrant having opinions on the subject knows what the reference is to. But if you just came out of a cryogenic freeze, they're talking about: 1. Elon Musk appearing to be giving a Nazi salute at Trump's inauguration [1] 2. Elon Musk espousing and propagating white supremacist views nearly on a daily basis[2] 3. Elon Musk openly supporting borderline Neo-Nazi[3][4] German AfD party[5] 4. Elon Musk promulgating the myth of "white genocide"[6] I guess if you somehow missed all of that over the past fe
Cites solid_fuel · 2026-04 · on “EFF is leaving X”
"Don't believe your lying eyes", eh? You must have simply missed it, because it was recorded and everyone with eyes can clearly see it. Maybe it's just not spread very widely in your media bubble. Here's a video: [this video] PS: You're defending a billionaire who would poison the water in your grandmother's neighborhood to save a few cents on his tax bill. Poor people like you mean nothing to him. He even treats his daughter like shit, just because she was brave enough to live her life as her own. He's a morally bankrupt person, who got where he is by treading on and abusing people, just like any other billionaire.