Following U.S. President Donald Trump's second inauguration ceremony on Jan. 20, 2025, online users spread video clips promoting a rumor that tech entrepreneur Elon Musk gave a "Nazi salute" — twice — while speaking at a rally celebrating the inauguration.
Snopes received reader mail about this subject, with one person asking, "Did Elon Musk do a Nazi salute on stage at some time during Trump's inauguration?" We also located a large number of users discussing the gesture on social media.
For example, numerous users on X shared a video showing Musk gesturing two consecutive times. The clips showed his gestures beginning with his right hand over his heart and ending with his arm fully extended in front of him, palm down.
(@YourAnonCentral / X)
However, these accusations were based on appearances alone and ignored the context of Musk's words.
During his brief speech — available in full on YouTube — Musk said to the crowd gathered in honor of Trump's victory, "And I just want to say thank you for making it happen. Thank you." He then briskly extended his right hand from his heart to the crowd in front of him. He repeated the gesture for the people behind him. Then, in a moment omitted from the users' videos, he said, placing his hand over his heart, "Thank you. My heart goes out to you. It is thanks to you that the future of civilization is assured, thanks to you."
Even so, Wired published that "the response from the neo-Nazi community across the globe was instant and unanimous." Rolling Stone also noted much the same, with both publishers citing specific neo-Nazi accounts and other far-right users praising Musk's gesture.
In our research, we noted that in December 2020, Musk tweeted (archived) the statement "my heart goes out to you" following a similar message of appreciation, writing, "Thanks to everyone who worked so hard to make Tesla successful. My heart goes out to you."
We cannot read Musk's mind to learn precisely what he intended by it. It's possible it was a purposeful Nazi salute; it could also have been entirely innocent. The available evidence is too scant to draw a solid conclusion.
We reached out to Musk for comment via two of his companies but did not receive responses. After we published this article, he addressed the gesture on X, replying (archived) to one user who quoted his line, "My heart goes out to you," with an emoji showing a face and hearts. He also made puns (archived) about Nazi-related terms and wrote (archived) on Jan. 24, "It was astonishing how insanely hard legacy media tried to cancel me for saying 'my heart goes out to you' and moving my hand from my heart to the audience. In the end, this deception will just be another nail in the coffin of legacy media."
Musk's Support of Trump
According to The Associated Press, Musk donated $200 million to America PAC, a super political action committee organizing support for Trump's 2024 campaign. Musk also appeared at Trump campaign rallies prior to Election Day, famously jumping around on the stage next to Trump and performing various victory-like gestures. He further organized an effort awarding $1 million daily prizes to encourage voting in swing states. NBC News later reported that the people organizing Musk's giveaway did not randomly select winners, contradicting Musk's past statements.
Following the election, Trump named Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy to a new effort named the Department of Government Efficiency, or "DOGE." At the time, the initiative was not a real government agency. Ramaswamy has since bowed out of the role, saying he planned to instead run for governor of Ohio.