Someone in Musk's position knows better than to make a Nazi (or Nazi-like) salute by accident. But that's not the point that will get taken away by his (and Trump's) supporters - it's that he was willing and able to say "this is nonsense" rather than produce a laborious groveling fake apology saying he didn't MEAN to offend and will now go educate himself.
Musk can't openly admit that he made a Nazi salute (twice) at a Trump rally, even if he wants segments of the public to believe that he did. Trump's been pretty clear about having no time for antisemitism - if only because his fave child and several of his grandchildren are Jewish. The ADL said it doesn't appear to be a Nazi salute, or at least not an intentional one - which is one informed opinion and certainly gives Trump and others leeway to ignore the incident. They may be mistaken and certainly people can and do disagree, but Alexandria Ocasio Cortez going on to say this means no one should ever listen to the ADL about anything is also damaging (and transparent). This has become a political football and so we have to ask - what are we being distracted from seeing?
And in the United States, bigot racist is ushered into office on Martin Luther King day. Surreal.
The change in Presidential administration, and therefore Inauguration Day, always falls on 20 Jan according to the 20th Amendment to the US Constitution. MLK Day was originally celebrated on 15 Jan (Dr. King's birthday), but as a US Federal holiday it was set to the third Monday of January under the Uniform Monday Holiday Act so that it would always be part of a "long weekend". It's just a coincidence that they were the same date this year, but neither could have been changed.
I'm sorry to stereotype, but he is a white South African who grew up under Apartheid. They're obviously not all racist, but for every white South African anti racist, I've met at least five white South African racists.
IME, it's (some) SA'ns that left after the end of Apartheid that tend to be racist; plenty of fairly egalitarian whites in SA now and people left DURING Apartheid in many cases because they didn't support it. Elon Musk is a knucklehead, but his dad was a politician and activist for the Progressive Party, which was the furthest left party in South Africa’s Parliament pre-1991 and led - for decades, alone in the context of the all-white Parliament - the party political fight to dismantle Apartheid. I doubt Musk Jr. was fully indoctrinated in pro-Apartheid rhetoric even if most white South Africans his age were. South Africa keeps coming up - even Steve Bannon did his duster about too many (former) SA'ns in US politics - but it's more likely that the call is coming from inside the house. Musk's attitudes about race seem more Silicon Valley Bro than Pretoria Bro to me.
It wasn't a Nazi salute, obviously 🙄. It wasn't obvious to Haaretz. People (especially lefty MNetters) want to pretend it was because they love the drama of it all and want to pretend Trump and his cohort are uniquely evil. Some righties apparently want to pretend that, too - appreciatively, not pejoratively.
But it’s ok because now there’s only two genders so who cares if they’re nazi, women haters? Don't be disingenuous; (most) people are capable of granular thinking. I think it's great that Boris Johnson went to Kiev and walked around with Zelenskyy; that doesn't suddenly erase my pro-EU history and politics and turn me ⚡⚡snap! zap! ping! ⚡into a big Brexiteer. Every party does a mix of positive and negative things no matter what your political perspective. people are so so predictably stupid. Indeed. Play on one issue that means in reality nada in your day to day life and you end up with this. Women's rights are intrinsically important to roughly half of the population, because women are human. But that's (mostly) not why people voted for Trump, nor why Trump appointed Musk.