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Images comparing Democrats with Musk’s inauguration hand gesture don’t tell whole story

Elon Musk speaks at an indoor Inauguration Day parade event in Washington, D.C., Jan. 20, 2025. (AP) Elon Musk speaks at an indoor Inauguration Day parade event in Washington, D.C., Jan. 20, 2025. (AP)

Elon Musk speaks at an indoor Inauguration Day parade event in Washington, D.C., Jan. 20, 2025. (AP)

Caleb McCullough
By Caleb McCullough January 28, 2025

If Your Time is short

  • Tesla CEO Elon Musk came under criticism for a hand gesture he made during President Donald Trump’s Inauguration Day ceremonies that people said resembled a Nazi salute, which he denied. 
  • Musk’s online defenders shared a collage of photos of former President Barack Obama, former Vice President Kamala Harris, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and others to argue outrage over Musk’s hand gesture was hypocritical. 

  • Many of the photos of these leaders were taken when their arms were briefly elevated while moving at different angles. When these leaders originally made these gestures, no one publicly speculated whether their arm motions were Nazi salutes.

After billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk sparked controversy for a gesture he made at President Donald Trump’s inaugural parade, many social media users defended Musk by posting images of Democrats with their hands raised in a similar position. 

The posts argued it was hypocritical for Musk’s detractors to call his gesture a Nazi salute when other people did not receive the same criticism. 

Social media users posted images of figures including former President Barack Obama, former Vice President Kamala Harris, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and pop star Taylor Swift holding their arms in similar positions. 

The posts were flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads.)

According to the Anti-Defamation League, the Nazi or Hitler salute involves raising an outstretched right arm with the palm down. 

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As he offered his thanks to the crowd during a Trump inaugural event, Musk put his right hand to his heart, then extended his hand to the crowd with his palm slightly raised. He turned around and made the same gesture again, before saying, "My heart goes out to you."

Musk, a close Trump ally, has criticized comparisons between his gesture and the "Sieg Heil" salute practiced in Nazi Germany. He said in a post on X, the social media site he owns, that the "legacy media tried to cancel me for saying ‘my heart goes out to you’ and moving my hand from my heart to the audience." 

He highlighted a post from the conservative X account Libs of TikTok, which showed Clinton, Obama, Warren and Harris holding their hands in a similar position. Musk said in the post, "The legacy media is pure propaganda." 

We looked at those images and others that Musk’s defenders pointed to to see how similar they were to Musk’s gesture. 

Kamala Harris

One image many posts included showed Harris raising her arm at a similar angle. The image was from Harris’ 2019 speech at the South Carolina Democratic Party Convention when she was running for president that year. 

At around the five-minute mark, Harris said Trump was trying to take the U.S. to an earlier era, before school integration, the Civil Rights Act and Roe v. Wade. She then used the slogan she later employed in her 2024 campaign, saying, "We’re not going back."

When she said this, she raised her right hand to the side and pointed with her index finger to illustrate going backward. She said it again and straightened her fingers, leaving her palm down and arm at an angle similar to Musk’s. Harris’ arm also appeared to be angled more to her side than Musk’s.

Barack Obama

The image that featured Obama came from the 2010 GOP House Issues Conference in Baltimore. 

Video of the event shows Obama answered questions from House Republicans on his health care proposals and other policies. Obama used his right arm to emphasize points, often pointing it parallel to the ground or downward with his palm down. This can be seen around 52 minutes into the video, when he was talking about insurance premiums going up. 

PolitiFact couldn’t identify the exact moment that corresponds with the photograph, but Obama raised his hand more than once briefly while speaking during the event, including at around 1 hour and 20 minutes into the video, when talking about Medicare and Medicaid becoming "massive problems down the road." 

Obama was moving his arm at several angles throughout the event and never made a distinct, isolated gesture like Musk’s. 

Elizabeth Warren

The screenshot of Warren holding her hand at an angle came at the beginning of her remarks during the 2016 Democratic National Convention. 

As she walked onstage for her speech, Warren said, "Thank you," many times as she waved to the crowd. She then directed thanks to the Massachusetts delegation: 

"Thank you, Massachusetts, for the great honor of serving as your senator. Thank you guys," she said. 

As she repeated the thank you, she clapped her hands together and raised her left arm to the delegation with her palm down. Warren raised her left arm, not her right, which is traditionally used for the Nazi salute.

Taylor Swift

Some posts used an image of Swift, who endorsed Biden in 2020 and Harris in 2024, that appears to show her extending her right arm at a similar angle. 

The image is from Swift’s 2014 performance on "Good Morning America" at Times Square. After performing "Welcome to New York," shortly after four minutes into the video, Swift blew a kiss to the crowd by bringing her left hand to her mouth and raising it out. She opened and closed her hand to wave at the crowd and did not leave it open with her palm down. 

The image being shared online has been flipped, so it appears that Swift was pointing her right arm out rather than her left. 

Hillary Clinton

An image that shows Clinton raising her left arm at a similar angle was taken by an Associated Press photographer at a Dec. 18, 2007, fundraiser in Chicago. PolitiFact couldn't find video footage of the event. 

In a video of an April 28, 2008, event in Indiana, Clinton used her arm with a flat palm to emphasize points many times throughout a speech, holding it at several angles in a similar way to Obama. She did it multiple times at around the 8:30-minute mark when talking about her grandfather. 

Clinton used similar gestures during public speeches throughout the campaign. Like in the Obama example, these gestures were part of a broader speaking style and not an isolated movement. 

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Images comparing Democrats with Musk’s inauguration hand gesture don’t tell whole story