Elon Musk, Donald Trump and the power of the iconic image

Right-wing creeps are very good at sending secret signals on the internet, burying their most extreme beliefs in ‘ironic’ memes, esoteric symbology and cryptic dog whistles. Sometimes, though, you’ll stumble across an image that doesn’t exactly require you to thumb through the ADL’s hate symbol database. Sometimes, there’s no hiding it.

In case you missed it (obviously you didn’t miss it, but just in case): we’re talking about Elon Musk’s onstage salute at Donald Trump’s victory rally on Monday (January 21). The one where he held his arm straight, four fingers pressed tightly together, at an angle such that his hand was slightly higher than his head. Then, he did it again. As countless onlookers have pointed out on social media, this gesture is often recognised as a Sieg Heil, or a ‘Nazi salute’.

Elon has dismissed any claims of this as “dirty tricks”, while supporters have rushed to explain his hand gesture as a “Roman salute” evoking the dawn of a new empire. (The Roman salute, also known as the Fascist salute, has dubious links to Ancient Rome, but we do know it was adopted by Mussolini and Hitler in the 20th century, which has pretty much eclipsed any distant historical meaning.) Others say that the salute was merely a gesture of love, as Musk followed it with the phrase: “My heart goes out to you.” And even the ADL suggested that we should have some sympathy with one of the world’s richest and most powerful men for his “awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm”.

The problem is: you can either believe that Elon Musk is a genius who wields his unparalleled understanding of the world to accrue political power in the name of Technological Progress, or he had no idea that he appeared to throw up a Sieg Heil on stage. You can’t really have it both ways. Although it’s also worth noting: a conscious fascist salute doesn’t necessarily mean that Elon is a full-blown Nazi (even if his support of the global far-right suggests otherwise). As one X user speculates, there’s an alternate possibility: “he is as usual emulating the misguided and eight-years-out-of-date concept of a ‘cool /pol/ guy troll’ that he has formed in his head thru four years of 4chan screenshots.”

Despite what some salute-deniers have said about his autistic tendencies and lack of social awareness, Musk has been acutely aware of the importance of aesthetics since the early days of his career. With Tesla, he emphasised the need to make electric cars fast, fun and ‘cool’ to encourage their widespread adoption. Maybe that’s why he strapped his Tesla Roadster to a rocket, creating what was hailed as a defining image of 2018 by the Guardian, and a stroke of genius by advertising executives. His obsession with the X symbol – which finally manifested in his takeover of Twitter – speaks to the same understanding of the power that lies in an iconic image. And yes, you might find his aesthetics very ugly, but maybe they’re not for you.

Donald Trump has a similar talent to Musk. When he narrowly survived an assassination attempt in July 2024, his immediate impulse was to pose for a photo op, face bloodied, fist raised against a blue sky. “I doubt many politicians or public figures would have had that presence of mind. Just that boldness to make the most of it visually,” the political imagery expert Erik Bucy told Vox at the time. “A lot of people say it’s the most iconic photo they’ve ever seen,” Trump himself told the New York Post. And, sure enough, many have pointed to the photo as a turning point in the election. If you watched the Trump rally on Monday, you might have noticed that this keen eye for a powerful image seems to run in the family. See: Barron Trump raising a hand to his ear as the crowd cheers him on, leaning into the “prophecy” of his future ascent to power.

The importance of imagery to Trump’s political success is nothing new. Numerous symbols have been linked with his rise to power in 2016, from Pepe memes, to the “okay” hand gesture, to Q – as in QAnon, the right-wing conspiracy that Trump repeatedly failed to denounce. Often, these symbols are coded, highly contextual, and all importantly they come loaded with a degree of plausible deniability. But as political streamer Hasan Piker points out in his commentary on this week’s rally, Elon’s salute is not such a complicated case: “There is no contextually appropriate situation where you’re Sieg Heil-ing. We, as a society, have moved away from that.”

For many, this alleged embrace of a hate symbol could be interpreted as a reflection of the current political climate. The world’s biggest tech platforms are openly shifting right. The New York Times has run a major, much-publicised interview with the conservative “neo-monarchist” Curtis Yarvin, about the end of democracy. And Trump has kicked off his presidency by immediately rolling back trans rights, cracking down on immigration, and obliterating DEI programmes in the US. It’s more “fashionable” to be right-wing than ever.

If Elon is just pandering to his right-leaning fans with an ironic or unserious gesture, the danger still can’t be understated. Just look at the reaction from figures on the extreme right, like Christopher Pohlhaus (leader of the American neo-Nazi group Blood Tribe) or Chris Hood (founder of NSC-131) who both praised Elon’s salute, “mistake” or not, on Telegram. Then, there’s white supremacist Nick Fuentes, who Musk welcomed back to X in May 2024. “That was a straight-up Sieg Heil,” he says in a video on the rally. “Like, loving Hitler energy.”

In the age of AI, when hundreds of images with no basis in reality can be generated at the click of a button, people have spent a lot of time and energy arguing that images are so over (guilty). But in the last few months, Trump and Elon appear to have proved the opposite. The iconic image still holds sway, at least for now, and it seems like a bad idea to disregard its political influence.