Musk may be many things. Three things he is certainly not are stupid, naïve, or uninitiated as to media representation and the way things appear on camera.
As a PP upthread described it: ‘stiff at the elbow, fingers together and palm down. Classic Nazi salute’. The image of Macron someone posted upthread shows him, in the video footage, moving his arm up into a wave gesture, palm facing outward as one might expect from a ‘heartfelt’ gesture. That Musk made a gesture he knew was likely to generate this response isn’t to say that he’s a Nazi – he made a Nazi salute - those are two different things. A spade is still a spade - no matter how many images people keep churning out of others doing an apparently similar thing as a ‘gotchya ! – see, other people do it too: are they also Nazis?’
Well, no - and the insinuation that ‘Nazi salute – therefore he’s a Nazi’ – is as typically lacking in any form of nuance as the majority of ‘X’ content and the lack of critical thinking increasingly characterising the www. The fact that Musk is stirring things in Germany, has an interest in trans humanism post- the likes of Julian Huxley et al that looks more than uncomfortably like eugenics, or that his family background in Apartheid also reeks of white supremacy, might say more about this context than the usual tired objection of flinging ‘Nazi!’ – and ‘your views align with Nazis!’ to anyone the so-called ‘Left’ disagrees with.
Plausible deniability. Clever, innit?
But here, we have precisely the point. Musk is well aware of media image. His gesture allowed for just enough plausible deniability that seemingly the whole internet is splitting hairs and getting all aerated as to whether it was or whether it wasn’t. That seems more the point. This guy enjoys stirring up controversy – simply because he’s a very rich and powerful man, and because he can.
He might not be a Nazi. But an arsehole? Emphatically, yes.