I don’t like Elon. I think he’s not very smart, and I want him far from the government. I suspect he’s cozying up to Trump to get funding for SpaceX, and electric vehicle subsidies, and he’ll probably continue his underhanded battle against any kind of good public transit.

If you watch it as a video, he says “my heart goes out to you”, puts his hand on his heart, then does a throwing motion, that ends with his hand up, and out to the side. Then he turns to a different part of the crowd, and does the same motion again.

It’s not an accident, it’s an awkward gesture, because he’s an awkward person. A Nazi salute has the arm held up, and directly forward from the shoulder for some time. His arm is out to the side, and only there for a moment. Unfortunately, there are probably neonazis too stupid to know the differences.

Treating everything as Nazi symbolism means that more and more people won’t hear alarm bells when you say there’s Nazi imagery, so the media pushing hoaxes like this is bad for public discourse as a whole.