a hand gesture by billionaire Elon Musk during a speech at Donald Trump's inauguration is causing controversy with some comparing it to a fascist salute let's take a look at a celebratory rally in Washington uh while thanking the crowd there you see it the world's richest man slapping his right hand to his chest and extending his arm outward in a gesture that resembled a Nazi salute musk then turned to the audience behind the podium and repeated the gesture as we've just scene so we can take a closer look at all this with gw's political correspondent Matthew
Moore Matthew this is the video that has lit up the internet what exactly is happening here did musk do it did he not do it well there's only one person I think that really knows whether this was a fascist salute and that is Elon Musk but it's fair to say that social media really blew up with clips of this gesture of this moment um going viral especially here in Germany CLA where the gesture is really associated with the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler and that era the Nazi era and the internet was really um alive with
people debating whether this was indeed um a a fascist a Hitler salute um on the one hand you had um historians saying of course it was had the Hallmarks of the salute on the other hand we saw groups like the Anti-Defamation League which campaigns against anti-Semitism coming to musk's defense and saying look this was quote an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm but it wasn't a Hitler salute and then you had Elon Musk himself thanking them on his xplatform and um liking or endorsing another tweet which called the criticism tired and so really ultimately
no one can know the intent of this moment of this gesture what was behind it apart from Elon Musk but it's it's really kind of worth underlining that this salute is is hugely hugely controversial especially in Germany where it's a criminal offense to do it um and it's punishable punishable with um up to three years in prison or a fine now this isn't happening in a vacuum as you suggest uh we should say musk has also caused a stir here in Germany because of his endorsement of the afd the alternative for Germany party yeah that's
right so this the context to this moment last night comes is is really that El musk has in recent weeks endorsed the far-right alternative for Germany here in in in Germany that's a party that is is is firmly outside the mainstream that other parties refuse to work with because they consider them too extreme um especially in light of Germany's history this is an anti-immigration anti-islam pro-russian nationalist party and by endorsing them he gave them really a platform that they've not had in their young kind of 10e history and it's a party that in Germany is
labeled as um as a supect suspected right-wing extremist Party by German security services so this is just to give you a sense of who Elon Musk is endorsing and it was a really kind of Highly significant move because here you have the the world's richest man someone with the ear of Donald Trump um with huge business interests here in Germany and around the world basically endorsing a party that is firmly outside the mainstream and in doing that he he he also had a conversation with the the leader of that party where he appeared to show
actually a limited knowledge of history describing Hitler Adolf Hitler as a communist so it it kind of just shows that he's he's he's really willing to break taboos and and break the the boundaries but as for this gesture no one knows except from the Elon Musk whether this was intended to be a Hitler salute our correspondent Matthew Moore thank you so much for that analysis
