Musk doubled down on his hateful gesture - the ADL shouldn’t validate it.

This is not a great time to show “grace” by granting permission for what looks like a picture-perfect impression of a Nazi-salute.

Jan 21, 2025

Thanks, Beth!

The current and past leaders of the ADL seem to have a difference of opinion over what Elon Musk did yesterday. Jonathan Greenblatt, the current ADL head, and Abe Foxman, ADL’s leader emeritus, were reacting to this:

Here’s Greenblatt’s response, followed by Foxman’s.

“Awkward gesture?” How does Greenblatt know that it wasn’t an intentional dog whistle? Claiming it’s anything else just doesn’t pass the schmell test. For one thing, it’s not the first time Trump was Sieg heiled on day one. Who can forget neo-Nazi Richard Spencer’s salute immediately following the 2016 election:

I’ve yet to hear an explanation for Musk’s action that makes sense. 1 Staying he was stoned or blaming his Asperger’s is unfair to the millions of people who handle similar challenges while maintaining enough self control not to send a signal of hate with the whole world watching. It would be easy for Musk or Trump to clear this up, but that is not their style. Given the Nazi-infested cesspool that X has become and Trump’s consistent refusal to disavow neo-Nazi and white supremacist supporters and their antisemitic conspiracy theories2 like “The Great Replacement,” why would they clear this up now with a simple apology? With the Proud Boys marching through Washington DC 3 yesterday, claiming ownership of the streets, Musk’s gesture needs to be seen in a more serious light by everyone, especially the ADL (to be fair, the ADL condemned the pardoning of the Jan. 6 offenders and has often stood up against the hate groups of right).

This isn’t a matter of simple distraction or owning the libs. This is about normalizing hate - and specifically neo-Nazi forms of hate. Musk is already supporting the radical right wing party in Germany’s upcoming elections, so his leanings are not hidden. After granting clemency to the criminals who violated the Capitol (aka “Camp Auschwitz”) on January 6, 2021, we know where Trump stands.

I would think Greenblatt would have at least called for a clarification and requested that such exuberant right-arm-thrusting gestures with the palm down be avoided, you know, like people avoid using the expression “final solution” when discussing an algebra problem or making ill-suited remarks about gas and ovens.4

Greenblatt could have lent his constructive criticism, politely, even, without being inflammatory. That’s how you demonstrate “grace,” not by providing a permission structure to make a grievous antisemitic mistake, when the mistake is not even acknowledged. Greenblatt could even have praised Trump’s role in working with Biden to achieve the ceasefire in Gaza (though I do not agree that the deal wouldn’t have happened without Trump5). But he did nothing of the sort.

So, despite my lifelong support for the ADL and all it stands for, my beef is nearly as much with Greenblatt as it is with Musk and Trump.

Time magazine noted that the Anti-Defamation League, “an organization whose mission is to combat antisemitism and which itself describes a ‘Hitler salute’ as one with an “outstretched right arm with the palm down…” That’s exactly what Musk did, and with enough brute force to karate chop the podium in two.

Musk could have gestured in any number of ways to show his love to the crowd. How about blowing them a kiss? A Star-Trek Vulcan Salute would have been brilliant and totally on brand. I don’t expect anyone in this administration to be a uniter-not-a-divider. But how about just not being an inciter and inflamer?

This is not a great time for right-minded people to show “grace” with regard to what looks like a picture-perfect impression of a Nazi-salute. Especially when Musk himself doubled down on it. He responded to the ADL’s defense of him with a brief thank-you and a crying/laughing emoji. Was that supposed to be a retraction? Was he laughing with or laughing at Greenblatt? As Time noted:

Musk did not directly address the controversy Monday night, though he replied to a number of posts on X about it—thanking the ADL, mocking Ocasio-Cortez, and agreeing with a post that said: “Can we please retire the calling people a Nazi thing? It didn’t work during the election, it’s not working now, it’s tired, boring, and old material, you’ve burned out its effect, people don’t feel shocked by it anymore, the wolf has been cried too many times.”

See what Musk is doing there? He is trying to delegitimize all comparisons to Nazis (and by extension fascists) to soften up the resistance of those who will be defending America from a Hungary/Putin illiberal coup over the next four years. Yesterday was the first blow, the first body punch to the torso of freedom.

It’s particularly exciting when the world’s richest man has been given the keys to country and our most vaunted anti-bias organization is showing a stunning tolerance for his hateful antics. If he didn’t mean to do a Sieg heil, as you suggest, Mr. Greenblatt, why is he not saying that? Did he tell you that privately? If so, let us in on the secret. We can call it a retraction and move on to the next affront.

I’m sorry, Mr. Musk. We don’t compare you to fascists to score political points, as you suggest; we do it because you support their leaders, parties and platforms and you want to duplicate them here in America. And even if you didn’t intend to send a dog whistle to your most radical supporters, they interpreted it that way.

Rolling Stone reported:

Christopher Pohlhaus, the leader of the notorious neo-Nazi group Blood Tribe, posted the clip of Musk’s salute on Telegram with a lightning-bolt emoji (evocative of the Nazi SS) and the caption: “I don’t care if this was a mistake. I’m going to enjoy the tears over it.”

I actually would prefer not to constantly be making comparisons between Trumpism and the Nazis, but when the analogies are so valid, it’s irresponsible to ignore them - as I demonstrated in my posting right after the election: "Worst case...in four years time we'll replace him."

If all this feels like déjà vu all over again, that’s because just a week after taking office in 2017, on International Holocaust Day, the Trump administration chose a symbolic and fitting target for their first major post-inauguration assault on truth, and it was the Holocaust.

The White House issued what should have been a routine statement commemorating the Shoah, but whether intentionally or not, someone got it very wrong.

It is with a heavy heart and somber mind that we remember and honor the victims, survivors, heroes of the Holocaust,” the statement read. “It is impossible to fully fathom the depravity and horror inflicted on innocent people by Nazi terror.

Nice wording…except for the inconvenient omission of a certain people whose name begins with “J.” Who exactly were these “innocent people?”

Lest it be forgotten: The first Trump administration’s 30,573 lies began with Holocaust denial.

Trump’s lie in rendering the Holocaust Judenrein, made even before the inauguration bleachers were taken down, was a harbinger of what would follow. Once he was allowed to get away with an act of blatant Holocaust denial, rejecting a free and fair election would become child’s play for him. One Big Lie begets another. Trump’s reign began with a simple act of Holocaust denial, and then, 30,000 lies later, it ended with “Camp Auschwitz” at the Capitol.

And now, Trump 2: The Sequel, begins with an un-retracted Sieg heil, validated and condoned by the ADL.6 This is much, much worse than what happened in 2017.

Back in 2017, Jonathan Greenblatt and the ADL wrote to the White House, offering them Holocaust training for staff. Maybe they should offer it again, with a special added session on how to avoid Nazi dog whistles.

It’s not too late for Greenblatt and Musk both to walk this back. With International Holocaust Day less than a week a way, this one marking the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, it would be nice for Musk to accompany the US delegation or at least to say some meaningful words about the damage fascism and antisemitism have brought to this world. It goes without saying that President Trump should also speak out against antisemitism and all hate - and I think he will, not because it’s moral and right, but because he will recall how annoying it was to get so much flak for the botched Holocaust Day message last time.

Greenblatt spoke of grace in his tweet. Musk’s response reminds us that - forget about the Golden Age - America’s Graceless Age is upon us. About the nicest thing you can say about Trumpism is that it is entirely lacking in grace, which I would define along the lines of the Oxford Dictionary, as a combination of respect and courteous good will. “Courteous good will” is so last month, so Christmas and Hanukkah, so Luke 2:14 and Leviticus 19:18. You want grace? Read the Book of Ruth. 7

If Greenblatt had called for grace in the abstract - say, before yesterday afternoon - it could be seen as admirable. Extending a benefit of the doubt is what fair minded people should do. I’m ready to do that, or at least I was. I still am in some respects.

But it’s ceases to be admirable when that call for grace is met by a middle finger - raised palm down, with an exuberant outstretched right arm.

A suggestion for Mr Space X:

Live long and prosper!