Summary
Elon Musk faced backlash after making a gesture at a Trump inauguration event resembling a Nazi salute, sparking condemnation in Germany.
Critics, including Jewish leaders and Chancellor Olaf Scholz, called the act provocative and linked it to Musk’s support for Germany’s far-right AfD party.
Musk dismissed the accusations, calling them baseless.
Legal experts noted the gesture could be prosecuted under German law if malicious intent is proven.
Critics stressed its troubling context given the far-right audience and Musk’s political affiliations.
Elon, the accusations are not baseless. If it was an honest mistake you’d be bending over backwards to apologize, denounce Nazis, etc.
Exactly this
I hope some German politicians still have the balls the prosecute him in his absence. It would be funny if he cannot travel to Germany anymore (or maybe the whole EU, if they issue an international warrant)
Where’s the difference
Good grief. He can’t even make that gesture without looking like a dweeb.
I’m listening to the 2020 Behind the Bastards on Elon. I like this cast in that you get a full picture, including childhood. Memet Oz: we learn of daddy issues and that he actually was a good surgeon back in the day. Zuckerberg: we learn that FB began as a social wank site for ranking women and that Zuck is heavy into samurai swords.
Elon, apparently, has a CHA score of somewhere in the 8-10 zone and is very overshadowed by his brother on that score.
What is a CHA score? I can’t find something that fits the initialism with any relevance, certainly not a CHADS score (stroke risk).
Charisma, like in DND. He has average to below average social skills basically.
OoOoh, 8-10/18. That makes far more sense!
Versus Zuckerberg who is rumored to have a CHA of 2. But I think that may be standard for most guys into samurai swords.
Hitler knew everyone was watching, apartheid baby has to look around for make sure everyone saw
Hitler had better posture?
Elon looks like he’s demonstrating to a toddler what starting a lawnmower looks like from the lawnmower’s perspective.
Yeah, hitler had way more swagger than this elon douchebag
Left pic has more power. That’s the difference.
This is a great time to take stock of which of your news sources, friends or family can’t be trusted
Turns out nobody
that sucks…
Not only that, that’s not the first time he’s done that. He’s had practice.
after making
a gesture at a Trump inauguration event resemblinga Nazi saluteThere, Grauniad. I fixed your copy for you.
Removed by mod
W-we did? What did we do this time?
My Grandma is from Germany and old enough to remember the real thing. I asked her what she thought and her response was that it was, without any doubt, a Nazi salute. I’ll stick to this primary source over any neo-fashist calling the accusation “baseless”.
I’m mad enough that a person that is essentially a member of the cabinet is doing something so disgusting so blatantly. I’m even more mad at all the people that insist I am not seeing what I’m so clearly seeing. They’re the reason this shit will continue to spiral.
It’s also a well-worn fascist tactic: completely bald-faced lying in the face of undeniable truth. It’s just double speak on a toddlers level. But it’s frustrating as fuck because it works—and it works because we have a media ecosystem in this country that thrives on a bias toward “fairness” over a bias toward telling the truth as we can all plainly see it.
“Say all house republicans came to the floor tomorrow saying they believe the earth is flat. The Times would lead with “democrats and republicans can’t agree on shape of earth.”
Joseph Goebbels on the big lie: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it"
You must reject the evidence of your eyes.
How can it be prosecuted under German law if not done in Germany?
The repercussions I’d like to see is twitter ban. At least for the government organisations.
EDIT: why the downvotes, the question is legitimate.
Because relevant is not where it is done, but whether it is suitable to disturb the public peace in Germany. So it takes effect in Germany and if the prosecutors would choose so, they could charge him in Germany and if that leads to an arrest warrant, it could be executed here too.
To conceptualize it, think of online scamming. If someone in India is scamming eldery in the US, the US would also prosecute it, despite the perpetraitor being abroad.
Your analogy doesn’t work, since that is a crime that involves a us citizen. Moreover us claims jurisdiction of anyone all over the world uses usd.
With the heil we have a “victimless” crime that takes place in the other country and doesn’t involve anyone who is German (or uses German currency).
This is comparable to Poland wanting to prosecute people who go to have abortions abroad. Or Texas trying to prosecute people going for abortions to other states. This is just not how jurisdiction works.
This has been part of a legal discussion over the past twentyish years, as the Internet allows for people to do hate speech that is prosecutable under German law from outside Germany, but targeted towards a German audience.
The English Wikipedia entry does not include the section about this issue, however the German one does. Maybe you could pass it through a translator of your choice. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volksverhetzung#Anwendung_auf_Auslandstaten_(Strafanwendungsrecht)
Basically the Bundesgerichtshof (federal court) which is the highest instance below the constitutional court used to rule it as sufficient, when the hate speech can be available in Germany. In 2016 they changed this opinion, saying that the possible availability in Germany does not constitute a success of the act and hence it cannot be considered part of the suitability of hate speech committed in another country. Because of that surrounding laws were amended in 2020 to specify that hate speech committed abroad can be prosecuted in Germany, if it was received by a wider audience (i think this is evident in the case of Musks Hitler salute) and the perpetrator is either a German citizen or has significant connections to Germany.
In regards to jurisdiction you cannot apply the concepts that work inside a federal nation state to how things work between nation states.
Poland could pass a law to prosecute abortions done abroad under their own jurisdiction, if such a law would be in accordance with other EU laws. If we take the UK instead as an example, they could absolutely do that. Now whether other countries would extradite someone accused under such a law to the UK is another question.
the main takeaway about things working between federal nation states is that they work like they work because there is no-one above federal nation states to tell them how jurisdiction works in such cases.
If powerful enough nation says that they have jurisdiction and no-one opposes them then they have it.
I fear that Germany might not want to anger the us.
Updoot because I had the same question and was reading the responses from your comment
