Some media outlets might be downplaying
Elon Musk's Nazi salute at Donald Trump's inauguration, but his daughter knows what it was meant to be.
Vivian Wilson is calling out her father for Sieg Heiling after his remarks while also shading the publications that have refused to call the gesture what it is. The Telsa CEO on Monday performed the Nazi greeting to the crowd once before turning around and performing it again to the group behind him.
"I'm just gonna say let's call a spade a fucking spade. Especially if there were two spades done in succession based on the reaction of the first spade," Wilson wrote on Threads, a competitor of Musk's X/Twitter.
While Musk's move sparked alarm among viewers, some outlets and organizations instead tried to downplay the gesture. Even the Anti-Defamation League
referred to the widely-known Nazi greeting as an "awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute," while other outlets referred to it as simply a "controversial hand gesture." NBC News described it as Musk "forcefully touch[ing] his heart, before raising his hand and saluting supporters.”
Some have attempted to defend Musk's Nazi salute by claiming he intended for the gesture to be something else, with the excuses claiming simultaneously that the move was supposedly a symbol of love while somehow also being a reference to a Roman salute — except such a salute didn't actually exist in ancient Rome,
according to historian Martin Winkler.
"I don't know why y'all are reacting with such vigor, I'm clearly only talking about card suits," Wilson continued. "I mean I have ADHD and this was CLEARLY just an accident that people happened to interpret to mean something other than just card suits. After all, there's no proof I'm not just talking about card suits. Y'know... people assuming that I'm not just talking about card suits just goes to show how dishonest people/the media can be."
Wilson,
who is transgender, is one of six children (five living) Musk had with his first wife, model Justine Wilson. She filed a petition in Los Angeles County Superior Court in April 2022 to legally change her name and gender, citing the reason as "Gender identity and the fact that I no longer live with or wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form." She has since spoken out about the "cruel" treatment she received from Musk as a child.
"For those who can read between the lines, do y'all understand how fucking easy this is to do?" Wilson added. "Plausible deniability honey. Just saying."