Musk responded after the gesture at Trump’s rally

Elon Musk has sparked outrage over an armed gesture he made at Donald Trump’s birthday party.

Musk thanked the crowd for “making this happen” before putting his right hand over his heart and throwing his arm in the air directly in front of him. Then he turned and repeated the action to those sitting behind him.

Many on X, the social media platform he owns, likened the sign to a Nazi salute.

In response, Musk posted on X: “Actually, they need better dirty tricks. The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is tired.”

Musk, the world’s richest man and a close ally of President Trump, was speaking at the Capital One Arena in Washington, DC.

“My heart goes out to you. It’s thanks to you that the future of my civilization is secured,” he said after giving the second one-armed salute.

He responded immediately on social media.

Claire Aubin, an expert on Nazism in the United States, said Musk’s sign was the “Sig Power” or Nazi salute.

“My professional opinion is that you’re fine, you have to believe your eyes,” he told X, referring to what he believed to be a clear reference to the Nazis.

“Here’s a historian of fascism who had a Nazi salute and was very violent,” said Ruth Ben-Ghiyat, a history professor at New York University.

Andrea Stropa, a close confidant of Musk and linked to far-right Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, posted a clip of Musk with the caption, “The Roman Empire has begun, greetings from the Romans,” Italian media reported.

The Roman salute was widely used in Italy by Benito Mussolini’s Fascist Party, and was later adopted by Adolf Hitler in Germany.

According to Italian media, Stropa later deleted the post. He later posted, “Some have mistaken it for a Nazi salute, only when Elon, who has autism, expressed his feelings by saying, ‘I want to give you my heart.'”

“That’s what he said into the microphone. Elon doesn’t like fanatics!”

The sign comes as Musk’s politics have shifted increasingly to the right. Germany’s far-right AfD party and Britain’s anti-immigration party Reform recently issued statements in support of the UK.

But some, including the Anti-Defamation League, which was formed to fight anti-Semitism, defended it.

“It looks like Elon Musk made an awkward gesture in a moment of excitement, not a Nazi salute,” the group posted on X.

Musk has become one of Trump’s closest allies and has been tapped to co-head what the president has dubbed the Department of Government Efficiency.