Fox News personality Laura Ingraham has defended Elon Musk after he made a hand gesture that resembled the Nazi salute — nearly ten years after she was accused of a similar move.
During a speech following President Donald Trump’s inauguration Monday, Musk put his hand to his chest before extending his arm up with his palm down - twice. It was met with instant criticism by pundits and many online, but Ingraham has jumped to Musk’s defense.
“Now, we all know that Elon Musk is excited about the Trump agenda and that he’s prone to sudden wild gesticulations,” she said on Fox News’s The Ingraham Angle Wednesday. “Kinda funny. And that is what the grasping, gasping resistance grabs onto.”
Ingraham was similarly accused of performing a Nazi salute at the Republican National Convention in 2016. The gesture came as she enthusiastically voiced her support for Trump, a first-time presidential nominee at the time.
“I want to say this very plainly: We should all—even all you boys with wounded feelings and bruised egos, we love you—but you must honor your pledge to support Donald Trump now,” she exclaimed, before performing the hand gesture.
Ingraham was heavily criticized across social media at the time.
“Um, anyone else catch Laura Ingraham’s nazi salute?” one user posted on X (Twitter at the time), according to US Weekly.
“Kind of a weird way for laura ingraham to end her speech,” another user wrote.
However, others hopped to her defense and claimed it was an accidental gesture that resembled a Nazi salute.
“I do not think it is fair to say Laura Ingraham capped off her remarks at the Republican National Convention by giving a Nazi salute,” Slate’s Josh Voorhees wrote. “However, I do think it is fair to say that Laura Ingraham capped off her remarks at the Republican National Convention with a hand gesture that, intentionally or not, clearly resembled a Nazi salute.”
Many Democrats still tore into Musk. Progressive lawmaker Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez slammed the billionaire and even criticized the Anti-Defamation League after the organization released a statement claiming they did not believe Musk performed a Nazi salute.California Rep Robert Garcia, meanwhile, called it: “So gross, disgusting.”
But it’s not just opponents of the Trump administration claiming Musk did, indeed, perform a Nazi salute. White nationalist Nick Fuentes — who once dined with Trump — said Musk’s motion was “straight up like ‘Sieg Heil,’ like loving Hitler energy.”
Musk has defended himself on X, the social media platform he owns. "Frankly, they need better dirty tricks,” he said. “The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is sooo tired."
The world’s richest man also went after Wikipedia this week after he discovered his page on the site noted, accurately, that the gesture had been compared to a Nazi salute (and even noted that he denied it).
“Since legacy media propaganda is considered a ‘valid’ source by Wikipedia, it naturally simply becomes an extension of legacy media propaganda!”, he wrote on X, sharing a screenshot of the Wikiepdia page.
