The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, Smallbones, alone. They do not necessarily reflect those of The Signpost or its staff, of other Wikipedia editors, or of the Wikimedia Foundation.

Let's tell it like it is. On January 20, the world's richest man, Elon Musk, who is slated for high office in in the new U.S. administration, stood behind a lectern bearing the U.S. presidential seal at an event celebrating the inauguration of the new president. He clapped his right hand over his chest, then flung his arm forward toward the crowd with his hand slightly above his head, palm facing down. It was a Nazi salute. Then he turned around to face the crowd behind him and repeated the Nazi salute.

Soon after the Nazi salutes The Guardian wrote

Elon Musk ... gave back-to-back fascist-style salutes during celebrations of the presidential inauguration of Donald Trump....

Musk then slapped his right hand into his chest, fingers splayed, before shooting out his right arm on an upwards diagonal, fingers together and palm facing down.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which campaigns against antisemitism, defines the Nazi salute as "raising an outstretched right arm with the palm down".

Many people writing on social media and in the press soon identified it as a Nazi salute, or equivalently as a "Hitler salute" or "Fascist salute". They were old and young, Americans, British, French, Germans, Spaniards, Israelis, left-wingers and extreme right wingers. Some seemed so shocked or flustered that they didn't know what to call it. For example The Jerusalem Post publishing within minutes of the salutes wrote "US billionaire Elon Musk appeared to make a Heil Hitler salute at the Washington DC Trump parade on Monday, following Trump's inauguration. Musk was seen making the gesture twice on live television," and included a video of the salutes. It almost appeared as if they were saying We saw the Heil Hitler salutes and you can see them too. But are we really allowed to say that the world's richest man gave two Nazi salutes?

If you don't believe that Musk performed two Hitler salutes, just watch the video from NBC which shows the first salute (at about 0:57-0:59) and the second about 2 seconds later.

If you were watching the video from Fox Live you can be excused for missing it. The video cut away from Musk to a crowd shot for two seconds during the first salute, but if you were quick you could see the second salute with Musk's back turned.

But how can we know they really were Nazi salutes? Just watch The Hitler Salute from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum where they show multiple examples and explain "the Hitler salute is one of the most recognizable symbols of Nazism."

Many of the original stories on the Nazi salutes tried hedging whether they actually were Nazi. Even the Guardian which stated without qualification in its lede sentence that Musk "gave back-to-back fascist-style salutes" used the headline "Elon Musk appears to make back-to-back fascist salutes at inauguration rally." The most jarring of these split-decisions came from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL)

This is a delicate moment. It’s a new day and yet so many are on edge. Our politics are inflamed, and social media only adds to the anxiety.

It seems that @elonmusk made an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute, but again, we appreciate that people are on edge.

In this moment, all sides should give one another a bit of grace, perhaps even the benefit of the doubt, and take a breath. This is a new beginning. Let’s hope for healing and work toward unity in the months and years ahead.

- ADL on X

But after Musk made Nazi-themed jokes on X, ADL responded more appropriately and another Jewish group, Bend the Arc: Jewish Action, responded to ADL by specifically calling out Musk's Nazi salutes.

So should journalists call Musk's arm and hand movements a "Nazi salute", "Hitler salute", or "Fascist salute"? There's nothing else to call it.

Consider a hypothetical, if a different speaker had appeared on the stage wearing a red t-shirt with a a white circle in the middle containing a black cross with the arms of the cross bent clockwise at a 90 degree angle, the proper way to describe that symbol is "a swastika". If the speaker were to describe his intentions in wearing such an inflammatory symbol, we might be able to judge better what he was trying to do, but the symbol would still be a swastika, just as Musk's "gestures" can only be called Hilter salutes, whatever his intentions were.

The German newspaper Die Zeit got the story right when they wrote:

Let's not beat around the bush. When someone on a political stage, during a political speech, in front of a crowd including no shortage of far-right followers extends his right arm at an angle, repeatedly, they're giving the Hitler salute.

There's no need for "allegedly" or "reminiscent of" or "controversial."

Do we need to consider Musk's intentions when considering whether he performed the Nazi salutes? Ultimately, we can only judge his actions and his words, not what was in his mind while he was giving the Nazi salute. For example, he might have said something like, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean that, I was just excited and had a muscle spasm." I don't know how many people would believe that explanation, but at least we would know that he understands that giving a Nazi salute is not acceptable.

The Associated Press on January 21 reported that "Many social media users noticed that the gesture looked like a Nazi salute. Musk has only fanned the flames of suspicion by not explicitly denying those claims in a dozen posts since, though he did make light of the criticism and lashed out at people making that interpretation."

His explanation about the event was to attack his critics, posting on X "The 'everyone is Hitler' attack is soo tired". He also renewed an old attack on Wikipedia. Nothing Musk said during his speech was related to Wikipedia. But after the speech, he used it as an excuse to condemn Wikipedia. Both Die Zeit and the New York Times [1] have analyzed the meaning of Musk's Nazi salute without mentioning Wikipedia. Die Zeit following their recognition of the obvious, that "a Nazi salute is a Nazi salute is a Nazi salute" emphasized that "the payoff" to Musk was "attention-grabbing," that his political and financial power depends on his ability to grab the public's attention.

Katrin Bennhold of the New York Times agreed with Die Zeit and other German voices. "For the German establishment, the situation was very clear." She then destroyed the myth that Musk had made a "Roman salute" rather than a Nazi one. The Roman salute first appeared in the late 19th century as a dramatic stage gesture and was adopted by the silent film industry, leaving little trace beyond its adoption by Italian Fascism and Nazism. Musk is now supporting far-right parties in several European countries, such as the Alternative für Deutschland in Germany.

Musk has attacked Wikipedia before, most notably by saying that he would give Wikipedia $1 billion if it changed its name to "Dickipedia". Le Monde notes that Musk "regularly accuses the online encyclopedia of backing the left and being a 'propaganda' tool. His ire echoes more hatred of the media than any real political bias of the platform."

After Musk renewed his Dickipedia offer this Christmas, Molly White examined the threat from Musk in detail in her blog Citation needed. A shorter version of the blog was also published in the previous issue of The Signpost

The escalating attacks on Wikipedia from Elon Musk and other powerful figures on the American right follow a familiar pattern. First come the claims of bias, supported by cherry-picked or misrepresented examples. Then the demands for "balance", which in practice mean giving equal weight to fringe views or demonstrably false claims. When these demands are refused, the attacks shift to the platform's legitimacy itself: its funding, its governance, its leaders, and its very right to exist as an independent entity.

So what happened on Wikipedia that made Musk attack Wikipedia and what can we do to avoid such a confrontation again?

The first mention of "a Nazi salute" on the Wikipedia article Elon Musk was at 20:58 UTC (3:58 EST), on January 20, less than an hour after Musk's speech and was properly cited to The Jerusalem Post. That edit was reverted with the edit comment "BLP" two minutes later. Three hours later (0:10 UTC) a long paragraph was added about the Nazi salute properly citing Politico and referencing Haaretz [2] and Congressman Jerry Nadler's tweet on X. A couple of edits added a few more details, but at 9:41 UTC the entire paragraph was removed based on a claim of BLP violation. Talk page discussion tended to discourage inclusion despite the solid referencing in reliable sources. The Wiki article Second inauguration of Donald Trump had only minor mention of Musk, and no mention of the Nazi salute until Elon Musk straight-arm gesture controversy, now known as Elon Musk gesture controversy was included in the "See also" section on January 24.

EMGC was created almost a full day after the speech via Articles for creation and was nominated for deletion two days later by User:Mystic Cornball in his first edit. The deletion discussion was very lengthy but the end result of keep never seemed in doubt. Mystic Cornball has continued editing Wikipedia, but only on topics related to Musk's political views.

The quality of writing and referencing by Wikipedians who included material into these articles about the Nazi salute rules out any editing misbehavior by them. Musk's attack on Wikipedia after his Nazi salute appears to be baseless. It was not an explanation of his intentions, it was not an apology or a denial. It was a non-denial denial. White's warning about baseless attacks from Musk was prescient, and we might expect more such attacks.

Is there anything Wikipedia editors can do about future attacks? I'll suggest two simple steps. Don't ignore or avoid any such attacks. Just keep on doing what you normally do when editing Wikipedia - search out reliable sources and include the facts in any affected articles. In short: tell it like it is.