Herr Musk | Fascist

Dr. StrangeHate said:
I think Elon has only rudimentary knowledge of designing electric cars, rockets and coding. But I do believe he has good to great sense about business/trends, because of which he is in charge of such fantastic companies. Those companies have moved on from him though other than the Cyber truck and only his name is now associated with them.

I just don't understand what has happened with him. Has he been brain washed by right wing propaganda, is this who he is, is he just really thick and by chance he made great business acquisitions. Yes his money does play a role in me not believing he is that stupid. Because this is not just purely inheritance we are talking about, it being in the right place several times (PayPal, Tesla and SpaceX) to become the richest person on that planet.
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This thread doesn't like any expression of him not being an idiot but he's not dumb and he's very involved in the likes of SpaceX.

My best guess is he's a cnut with few morals who during the last Trump term decided he'd ride the same right wing attention train hence the Trump like behaviour. He's also clearly a drug riddled mess most of the time. Or it could just be Trump opened the door for such behaviour to be normalised and Musk is exposing himself as the 4chan like idiot he is.

I'm just hoping he does something that crosses the line and he gets removed from any involvement in his companies. A guy who intentionally does a nazi salute for attention at an inauguration is a national security threat, he can't be allowed to control key industries.
 
berbatrick said:
i don't think "autism" is a valid excuse, most people have explained why. he has been on many rallies before with thousands of people, and never done anything like it. strange moment to start.
i do think there's some possibility with @Pogue Mahone theory of being awkward and missing what he was supposed to do. he is after all, horribly awkward.

however, given his politics, i think he knew how this would look. i think he did it deliberately, precisely to have this kind of discourse. did he mean it, why aren't people angry, why are you being unkind to the neurodivergent...
the right loves doing something that looks bad but also deniable, and then laughing at the loser left and woke libs for pointing out they're doing something that looks bad.

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Being awkward in public situations is a problem some autistic people face. The problem here is he did it twice.
 
berbatrick said:
i don't think "autism" is a valid excuse, most people have explained why. he has been on many rallies before with thousands of people, and never done anything like it. strange moment to start.
i do think there's some possibility with @Pogue Mahone theory of being awkward and missing what he was supposed to do. he is after all, horribly awkward.

however, given his politics, i think he knew how this would look. i think he did it deliberately, precisely to have this kind of discourse. did he mean it, why aren't people angry, why are you being unkind to the neurodivergent...
the right loves doing something that looks bad but also deniable, and then laughing at the loser left and woke libs for pointing out they're doing something that looks bad.

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It’s a very dangerous and uncomfortable stigma to associate Musk performing Nazi salutes with autism and it should be nipped in the bud immediately. @HTG has expressed eloquently how damaging and insulting it is for it to have any legs. I’m sure the internet is awash with the same conversations being played out with others with autism having to explain away that they aren’t prone to involuntary Nazi salutes when placed in “awkward” situations.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Fecking hell. One person mentioned Musk’s (alleged) autism as a possible factor in his behaviour on stage. And that person has an autistic son, is probably autistic himself and immediately retracted the suggestion as soon as he realised Musk made the salute twice.

I made a similar suggestion (also based on a clip where he only made the salute once) but never mentioned autism, only his habit for making awkward and bizarre, dorky physical movements on stage. I also retracted that suggestion when I found out he did it twice.

I have no idea what’s being said on X about what happened but why not stick to addressing what’s being said on redcafe, on redcafe.

The extreme sensitivity and self-righteousness on display in this thread is quite something.
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You're not being the most resilient in terms of reactions here either.

To be fair, you seem to always want to take a contrary position. Which can make things more interesting a lot of the time, and sometimes you're right (shock horror). But when someone with the background of Musk makes a nazi salute at the inauguration, it is quite annoying to see you again with the contrarian take, only this time seemingly without even a cursory look at what happened (you didn't realise he did it twice). It may be easy for you to sit and play the role of "it'll all be fine - it's not as bad as it seems", but for a lot of people this is quite a worrying time we're entering in to.
 
Smores said:
This thread doesn't like any expression of him not being an idiot but he's not dumb and he's very involved in the likes of SpaceX.

My best guess is he's a cnut with few morals who during the last Trump term decided he'd ride the same right wing attention train hence the Trump like behaviour. He's also clearly a drug riddled mess most of the time. Or it could just be Trump opened the door for such behaviour to be normalised and Musk is exposing himself as the 4chan like idiot he is.

I'm just hoping he does something that crosses the line and he gets removed from any involvement in his companies. A guy who intentionally does a nazi salute for attention at an inauguration is a national security threat, he can't be allowed to control key industries.
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It’s also possible it was a deliberate strategy to ingratiate himself with Trump to achieve exactly this outcome. Power and influence over the US government for the benefit of his businesses and weird crusade to fly to Mars. Buying Twitter being part of that long term strategy. Although that also goes against the popular narrative that he’s as thick as mince
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Yeah, that theory works. The awkward body language theory falls apart knowing he did it multiple times. Someone else suggested it was intended as physical version of internet trolling. Trying to impress 4Chan et al by offending the libs. Which also makes sense considering his behaviour online over the last few years.
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It doesn't make sense. I'm only using it as a point of reference but it's like your original post, it's misguided and very dangerous to downplay his views to essentially him being awkward or a troll. In this case he isn't trying to impress anyone, he is racist and he has used his social media platform to promote far right ideologies at a global level and he has mainly done it insidiously, we know that he share these ideas because he tweets way too much but most of his work is indirect.

The way people including mainstream media are trying to protect him worries me and people defending him because they don't want to be associated with the left/libs make it even worse. Elon Musk is a far right propagandist, there is no mitigation or other explanation needed.
 
Mike Smalling said:
Or that a Nazi salute is a bit more than “awkward”, not matter how many times you do it.
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Fair point. I am just astonished someone in this day and age will do it deliberately during a presidential inauguration.
What does a Nazi even mean now? Does this mean Elon hates Jews or has it shifted to count only non-white people. Is it purely to show he is a fascist.
 
Smores said:
This thread doesn't like any expression of him not being an idiot but he's not dumb and he's very involved in the likes of SpaceX.

My best guess is he's a cnut with few morals who during the last Trump term decided he'd ride the same right wing attention train hence the Trump like behaviour. He's also clearly a drug riddled mess most of the time. Or it could just be Trump opened the door for such behaviour to be normalised and Musk is exposing himself as the 4chan like idiot he is.

I'm just hoping he does something that crosses the line and he gets removed from any involvement in his companies. A guy who intentionally does a nazi salute for attention at an inauguration is a national security threat, he can't be allowed to control key industries.
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I wouldnt be surprised that him and Trump got in some kind of an argument very soon and separate.
 
hellhunter said:
There's only one kind of person that would use a Nazi salute to troll people. Someone comfortable with what it and they stand for
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Aye. No shades of grey on this particular topic. With good reason. I think it's the same for a lot of people and thus the nature if the thread.
 
Dr. StrangeHate said:
I think Elon has only rudimentary knowledge of designing electric cars, rockets and coding. But I do believe he has good to great sense about business/trends, because of which he is in charge of such fantastic companies. Those companies have moved on from him though other than the Cyber truck and only his name is now associated with them.

I just don't understand what has happened with him. Has he been brain washed by right wing propaganda, is this who he is, is he just really thick and by chance he made great business acquisitions. Yes his money does play a role in me not believing he is that stupid. Because this is not just purely inheritance we are talking about, he has been at the right place several times (PayPal, Tesla and SpaceX) to become the richest person on that planet.
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I think something worth noting about all the tech billionaire bros is that they've become very adept at following the political and social zeitgeist. It's how they've stayed in favour and been allowed to amass huge amounts of wealth and influence with relatively little interference from the governments of the day.

They're not primarily driven by ideals (although I think Musk is different to most in this regard), rather they will position themselves and their companies in such a way as to mirror the interests of the day. This, when it comes to social media, is potentially both dangerous and irresponsible - we've all seen the sort of disinformation that can become truth virtually overnight, and the sort of voices that can rise to prominence as a result of this.
 
Dr. StrangeHate said:
Fair point. I am just astonished someone in this day and age will do it deliberately during a presidential inauguration.
What does a Nazi even mean now? Does this mean Elon hates Jews or has it shifted to count only non-white people. Is it purely to show he is a fascist.
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It's used by white supremacists and Elon has given voice to the Great Replacement Theory. I don't think there is much room for debate here.
 
Dr. StrangeHate said:
Being awkward in public situations is a problem some autistic people face. The problem here is he did it twice.
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Can we stop trying to excuse his behaviour regardless if he has autism or not. I have worked with multiple people who have autism and none of them would ever think about doing it never mind actually doing it twice.
 
BD said:
You're not being the most resilient in terms of reactions here either.

To be fair, you seem to always want to take a contrary position. Which can make things more interesting a lot of the time, and sometimes you're right (shock horror). But when someone with the background of Musk makes a nazi salute at the inauguration, it is quite annoying to see you again with the contrarian take, only this time seemingly without even a cursory look at what happened (you didn't realise he did it twice). It may be easy for you to sit and play the role of "it'll all be fine - it's not as bad as it seems", but for a lot of people this is quite a worrying time we're entering in to.
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Guilty as charged on the contrarian thing but that's usually after seeing what the consensus is then going against it. The angle I took here was different. Look at the timing of it. It was a hot take immediately after the video got posted. It genuinely wasn't an attempt to antagonise or wind people up (for once!). It was an off the cuff explanation for something that looked utterly bizarre, fuelled by my long term fixation on Musk constantly behaving like a massive dork whenever he's on a stage. I then got wound up by a bunch of posts about how I was ignoring or defending his politics, or being a centrist dad, or whatever. Which was unfair, in my opinion, but it was thin skinned of me to get irritated by them. Fair point. I'm obviously not cornering the market on being overly sensitive but I will at least admit it.
 
golden_blunder said:
Can we stop trying to excuse his behaviour regardless if he has autism or not. I have worked with multiple people who have autism and none of them would ever think about doing it never mind actually doing it twice.
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I get it, and I will stop. I always attributed his strange actions on stage, his awkward jumping and dorkiness to autism so I was just extending it here thinking he made a mistake (the first time). Also a part of me didn't want to believe a Nazi salute can be done on the world stage at a presidential inauguration without any repercussions but here we are. I don't know what is going to come next if even this is going to be swept under the rug.
 
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JPRouve said:
It doesn't make sense. I'm only using it as a point of reference but it's like your original post, it's misguided and very dangerous to downplay his views to essentially him being awkward or a troll. In this case he isn't trying to impress anyone, he is racist and he has used his social media platform to promote far right ideologies at a global level and he has mainly done it insidiously, we know that he share these ideas because he tweets way too much but most of his work is indirect.

The way people including mainstream media are trying to protect him worries me and people defending him because they don't want to be associated with the left/libs make it even worse. Elon Musk is a far right propagandist, there is no mitigation or other explanation needed.
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It isn't downplaying or defending though, his actions are his actions and they deserve the same response whether trolling, calculating or strongly held beliefs. This isn't a new phenomen exclusive to Musk the vast majority of these ghouls are doing it for monetisation or exposure. We see new examples of people jumping over to Trump daily to cash in.

If you think he's not receiving punishment or being treated with kid gloves because of a mislabelling of his intentions I think you're way off course. That isn't why he's getting away with this behaviour and people should have learned that with Trump. If you want to stop fascism screaming fascist no longer works, people don't buy it, you have to offer a better alternative not more of the same.
 
"Dad what did you do during the rise of fascism?"

"Well son, I thought they were autistic nerds just trolling us, so feck all really."

Do better people. There is a straight line of events to get us here.
 
Dr. StrangeHate said:
Fair point. I am just astonished someone in this day and age will do it deliberately during a presidential inauguration.
What does a Nazi even mean now? Does this mean Elon hates Jews or has it shifted to count only non-white people. Is it purely to show he is a fascist.
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Good question. The OG Nazis of 1930's and 40's aren't making a comeback. It was a political movement specific to that time and place. Jew hatred will not be a central element of this version, for instance. At least not openly so that it impacts policy - Israel could not be happier with Trump's election. The similarities lie in extreme nationalism (America first), authoritarianism, racist views defining immigration policy, severe grievances about the past and other nations, strict dogma about sex and gender roles, and even expansionary ambitions. It's not one-to-one, but the similarities are definitely there. Of course, this new version is also about uninhibited capitalism (to enrich the wealthy even further), which goes against the original Nazi ideas about economics. Another big difference is that the original Nazis were (to my knowledge) much purer ideologues, that rooted their ambitions and policies in genuine beliefs about what Germany should be. Trump is a not an ideologue, but a con-man and opportunist. He doesn't believe in anything other than enriching himself.

Calling people like Musk and Trump Nazis now is shorthand for nationalist, racist, and authoritarian, which I think is what Elon embraces when he does the salute. Whether it's an effective attack is very doubtful to me.
 
Mike Smalling said:
Good question. The OG Nazis of 1930's and 40's aren't making a comeback. It was a political movement specific to that time and place. Jew hatred will not be a central element of this version, for instance. At least not openly so that it impacts policy - Israel could not be happier with Trump's election. The similarities lie in extreme nationalism (America first), authoritarianism, racist views defining immigration policy, severe grievances about the past and other nations, strict dogma about sex and gender roles, and even expansionary ambitions. It's not one-to-one, but the similarities are definitely there. Of course, this new version is also about uninhibited capitalism (to enrich the wealthy even further), which goes against the original Nazi ideas about economics. Another big difference is that the original Nazis were (to my knowledge) much purer ideologues, that rooted their ambitions and policies in genuine beliefs about what Germany should be. Trump is a not an ideologue, but a con-man and opportunist. He doesn't believe in anything other than enriching himself.

Calling people like Musk and Trump Nazis now is shorthand for nationalist, racist, and authoritarian, which I think is what Elon embraces when he does the salute. Whether it's an effective attack is very doubtful to me.
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The idea that the beliefs were 'genuine' and not just scaremongering and deifying where necessary, is a bit naive? Hitler was an ideologue and a lunatic but a lot of it was just a vehicle for power.

Your last paragraph is correct, fascism predates and outlasts the Nazis, they were just a very complete version of it so the words became synonyms.
 
Smores said:
It isn't downplaying or defending though, his actions are his actions and they deserve the same response whether trolling, calculating or strongly held beliefs. This isn't a new phenomen exclusive to Musk the vast majority of these ghouls are doing it for monetisation or exposure. We see new examples of people jumping over to Trump daily to cash in.

If you think he's not receiving punishment or being treated with kid gloves because of a mislabelling of his intentions I think you're way off course. That isn't why he's getting away with this behaviour and people should have learned that with Trump. If you want to stop fascism screaming fascist no longer works, people don't buy it, you have to offer a better alternative not more of the same.
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It kind of is downplaying it when you suggest that a fascist didn't really mean to be fascist but that he is just trolling or monetizing something else. And you don't need to scream anything, which is a condescending way of putting, you can just state that someone that has been publicly fascist for a while is being fascist right now.

And I don't really care if he is receiving punishment or not, what I don't want is for people to downplay his actions and views because many people that aren't on the political side of Twitter have no idea about what Musk is about. As for the last point it's a bit perplexing how do you offer a better alternative if you let mainstream media and global social platforms control the messaging in favor of these questionable characters?

In theory I agree with the idea that better alternatives, more palatable alternatives, are needed but that's only a thing in a context where you know what you are purchasing and what is being sold. Information is the key and at the moment consumers/voters aren't given any transparancy and that's what my point is, you need to call people what they are and don't sugarcoat it, then people can take whatever informed decision they want including vote for fascists.


Edit: It's also important for people to know about the monetizing part that you mentioned, in fascist fashion he promotes an oligarchy that should allow him to get access to public funds by being as close as possible to the most powerful individuals in America. He doesn't give a damn about the average citizen, he cares about people that look like him AND his pockets.
 
The Nazis based their racial segregation laws on the Confederacy and the 1920s US eugenicists.

It has always been, at the core, white supremacy. It's not limited to hating Jews.
 
InfiniteBoredom said:
The Nazis based their racial segregation laws on the Confederacy and the 1920s US eugenicists.

It has always been, at the core, white supremacy. It's not limited to hating Jews.
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Exactly. If you really want to understand the term fascist, and desperate it from Nazi, it's handy to read pre WW2 essays on it.
 
JPRouve said:
It kind of is downplaying it when you suggest that a fascist didn't really mean to be fascist but that he is just trolling or monetizing something else.
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The thing is these are not mutually exclusive. He can be at the same time, a fascist, trolling and monetising.
 
InfiniteBoredom said:
The Nazis based their racial segregation laws on the Confederacy and the 1920s US eugenicists.

It has always been, at the core, white supremacy. It's not limited to hating Jews.
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I'm shite at history but it wasn't even limited to hating Jews in Nazi Germany, right? Gypsies also bore the brunt of it. And I'm guessing the only reason black/brown people weren't also being herded onto trains in their thousands was because there wasn't enough of them living there at the time?
 
moses said:
Exactly. If you really want to understand the term fascist, and desperate it from Nazi, it's handy to read pre WW2 essays on it.
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The origins of totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt is a good read for that. A bit longer than an essay, of course.
 
As first reported by Rolling Stone, Christopher Pohlhaus, the leader of Blood Tribe, a neo-Nazi group, wrote on Telegram: “I don’t care if this was a mistake. I’m going to enjoy the tears over it.” Andrew Torba, the founder of Gab, a far-right social media platform, also wrote: “Incredible things are happening already.”
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https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/20/trump-elon-musk-salute

The mainstream media are on eggshells. It’s interesting to see how they navigate this.
 
moses said:
The idea that the beliefs were 'genuine' and not just scaremongering and deifying where necessary, is a bit naive? Hitler was an ideologue and a lunatic but a lot of it was just a vehicle for power.

Your last paragraph is correct, fascism predates and outlasts the Nazis, they were just a very complete version of it so the words became synonyms.
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Obviously the Nazis used propaganda to great effect, but I do think it was generally grounded in what Hitler actually believed, for instance that Germans were superior to other races and therefore deserved Lebensraum, and that Jews were subhuman. He used these ideas to gain power, because they were popular, and then very much acted on them as well.

Maybe I'm not understanding your point.
 
moses said:
The thing is these are not mutually exclusive. He can be at the same time, a fascist, trolling and monetising.
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Agreed. But the point that people are making are exclusionary as far as I understand but maybe I'm misreading them.
 
HTG said:
The origins of totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt is a good read for that. A bit longer than an essay, of course.
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Yep, it's an amazing book. She's amazing. One of my favourites.

A lot of that book can be misused to uphold the horseshoe theory, so I wouldn't recommend it as an introduction. It presumes you've read other books on the subject.
 
Mike Smalling said:
Obviously the Nazis used propaganda to great effect, but I do think it was generally grounded in what Hitler actually believed, for instance that Germans were superior to other races and therefore deserved Lebensraum, and that Jews were subhuman. He used these ideas to gain power, because they were popular, and then very much acted on them as well.

Maybe I'm not understanding your point.
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I'm not sure that many really fully aligned with Hitler. It's similar to the way the Republicans are piggybacking a man a lot of them despise, for power.

The bit that people believed was the nationalism and the exceptionalism of their nation. Which is still.an easy sell.
 
moses said:
I'm not sure that many really fully aligned with Hitler. It's similar to the way the Republicans are piggybacking a man a lot of them despise, for power.

The bit that people believed was the nationalism and the exceptionalism of their nation.
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And the antisemitism, surely? It was rampant at the time, and not only in Germany. Hitler enhanced it with his rhetoric, but it was definitely there already.
 
moses said:
I'm not sure that many really fully aligned with Hitler. It's similar to the way the Republicans are piggybacking a man a lot of them despise, for power.

The bit that people believed was the nationalism and the exceptionalism of their nation.
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And greed, in the sense that many thought that a discriminatory society would benefit them personally. That part is extremely relevant today.
 
How strange of the ADL to come out in support of Musk and say that it wasn't actually a Nazi salute. Definitely looked like it in images. The video makes him look as clumsy as he always does on stage in political rallies, but it's still pretty unmistakeably a Nazi salute...?
 
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