It was definitely a Nazi salute!

Elon Musk claims he was thanking Donald Trump supporters. Wht do you think?

OPINION

Elon Musk denies the gesture he made at Donald Trump's inauguration was a Nazi salute, but -- to me -- it was a definite aggressive Heil, Hitler!

Just look at the way the "gesture" was delivered.: with a hard pat on his heart and the aggressive move into into the outstretched arm, palm down and fingers together striaght out. Then look at his face that looks like a grimace. It was far from the warm, inviting "thank you" that Musk claims it was.

And if that wasn't enough. He did it again!

Today, Holocaust Day of Remembrance, remembering the thousands killed by the Nazis during World War II, it might not matter what a simple blogger thinks, more importantly, as much as the world's richest man claims it was a simple thank you gesture, a large segment of MAGA land understood what it was. White supremacists and Nazi followers interpreted with cheersvas Musk's signal to them.

Nick Fuentes, the far right Hitler lover who dined with Trump at Mar a Lago in 2022, described Musk’s gesture as “a straight-up sieg heil, like loving Hitler energy.”

FYI: Watch Elon Musk's salute and judge for yourself.

It was not the first time Musk has expressed his admiration for Hitler's racist regime. Born and raised in apartheid South Africa, he could not help but be embued with the values that of the racist culture. He came to the United States in 1992 on a student visa. White-ruled South Africa dropped apartheid as a cultural and political  institutionalized policy around the same time and began transforming itself into a modern democratic nation in 1994. Perhaps, not coincidentally, with the writing on the wall for South Africa's integrated future, Musk became a US citizen in 1994.

"After purchasing Twitter in 2022, Musk personally intervened to restore Fuentes and others like him, who had been banned by the platform’s previous owners," reports Vox. :Two 2023 data analyses found that the amount of antisemitic content on Twitter, now X, doubled after Musk’s purchase. A 2024 NBC investigation reported that Musk’s choices allowed antisemitism and neo-Nazism to 'flourish' on the influential social media  platform, identifying hundreds of neo-Nazi accounts gaining in influence under Musk’s new policies."

As owner of Twitter, which he renamed "X",  perhaps referencing one of the movie, American History X, a film about American Nazis. Musk expressed his support for some of the anti-Jewish views expressed by the far-right extremists

who he welcomed back to his social media platform. In support of one anti-Semetic poster, Musk posted “you have said the actual truth.” He then went on to attack the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a Jewish anti-hate group, for “unjustly attack[ing] the majority of the West” and its priorities that support flooding their country don’t exactly like them too much.” 

As a gesture of apology for his remarks, Musk visited Auswitz, one of Hitler's infamous death camps where millions of Jews were killed. Even in the face of the Holodaust, the visit apparently hasn't tempered his views.

More recently, Vox reports that Musk, who some have dubbed the "real" president for his closeness to Trump, has used his platform to repeatedly advance Germany’s far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party.

The AfD is extreme even by the standards of the European far-right. Some of the policies and activities of the Nazi-like party supports is disturbingly familiar under the Trump regime:

According to Vox, some AfD members tried to storm the German parliament in 2020, inspired by the US insurrectionists tried to do earlier on January 6; a former AfD member of parliament was arrested in 2022 for plotting an actual coup, The AfD party targeting newcomers of color; another leading party figure, Björn Höcke, has called for an end to German guilt over Nazism and used a Nazi slogan in one of his speeches.

This weekend, Musk appeared on screen at a rally for the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party. "I think you really are the best hope for Germany," Musk told them.

"It's good to be proud of German culture and German values, and not to lose that in some sort of multiculturalism that dilutes everything," Musk said.

Then, in an apparent reference to the Nazi era, Musk added that there is "frankly too much of a focus on past guilt and we need to move beyond that."

"Children should not be guilty of the sins of their parents, let alone their parents, their great-grandparents," he said as the crowd applauded.

His weekend remarks, hours before the 80th anniversary of the "Day of Remembrance," when Auswitz was liberated drew criticism in the US.

Abraham Foxman, director emeritus of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), wrote in a tweet that Musk's speech "helps place the hand gesture in perspective." While the ADL downplayed Musk's motion as an "awkward gesture" last week, Foxman disagreed, referring to it as a Nazi salute and "very disconcerting image."

"The words we heard from the main actors of the AfD rally about 'Great Germany' and 'the need to forget German guilt for Nazi crimes' sounded all too familiar and ominous," tweeted Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk. "Especially only hours before the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz."

It speaks volumns that Musk's inauguration "gesture" has not elicited an apology for any possible  "misinterpretation" of his alleged thank you gesture. Instead we get jokes or over-sensitivity and accused of not having a sense of humor.

It is not funny to make the "Heil, Hitler" salute, intentional or not, a mere punchline or a sign of what has become accepted as normal in this new scary America.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow me on Threads, on X or at the blog Views From the Edge.

Twitter, Yelp see disturbing increase of hate and racist posts

If Elon Musk didn't own Twitter, would anybody pay any attention to what the embattled world's richest man has to say about race?

Last Sunday, Musk tweeted that  “the media” and “elite colleges and high schools” of being “racist” against white and Asian people.

The CEO of Twitter, Tesla and Space X wrote, “The media is racist.” He then added, “For a *very* long time, US media was racist against non-white people, now they’re racist against whites & Asians. Same thing happened with elite colleges & high schools in America. Maybe they can try not being racist.” 

Musk provided no evidence to back up his view. His statement came in a screed defending Scott Adams, the creator of comic strip Dilbert, which has been dropped by a number US newspapers because of Adam's racist views, specifically against Blacks.

Brian Levin, a civil rights attorney and director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University said, in response to Musk’s tweets told CNBC:

“Systemic racism requires not only widespread bigotry to be held within a group but also a structural component that allows discrimination and oppression to be imposed on a minority because of an advantage of access and power. A white billionaire from South Africa who recently lost a high profile racial discrimination case may not be in the best position to offer counsel.”

Tesla is being sued by the California Civil Rights for alleged bias against Black workers and is being investigated by the EEOC, the federal agency responsible for enforcing civil rights laws against workplace discrimination.

Since Musk took over Twitter, besides restoring Donald Trump's account, who was banned by Twitter in 2021 for allegedly advocating violence and accused of spreading misinformation.

Trump's reinstatement got the headlines in the US, but overall, hate speech has soared on the social media platform and has reopened the platform to international terrorist groups to spread misinformation and to recruit, according to the New York Times. 

The increase in hate postings in such a short time is alarming, say researchers.

“Elon Musk sent up the Bat Signal to every kind of racist, misogynist and homophobe that Twitter was open for business,” said Imran Ahmed, the chief executive of the Center for Countering Digital Hate. “They have reacted accordingly.”

YELP'S ANTI-ASIAN REVIEWS

Twitter is not the only social media platform seeing a rise in hate.

Last year, Yelp, known for its customer-written restaurant reviews, removed more than 2,000 racist business reviews before they went online — a nearly tenfold jump over 2021. 

More specifically, much of the hate appeared to target Asian-owned restaurants and businesses. In 2021, Yelp proactively removed only nine posts that included anti-Asian hate. In 2022, it removed 475.

The sharp increase in Yelp's hate reviews perhaps reflects improved efforts by the platform to combat racist content and shows how even a non-political site known primarily for reviews of restaurants and repair services can be twisted into a weapon to further inflame those prone to hate Asians and hurt the Asian and Asian American entrepreneurs.

Yelp began tracking the hate-inspired reviews in in 2020, just prior to the surge of anti-Asian attacks and harassment, which AANHPI community advocates attribute was inspired by the anti-Chinese rhetoric coming out of the Trump administration.

Therefore, the increase in racist restaurant reviews isn’t surprising, according to University of Michigan marketing professor Justin Huang, told  KTLA, a Los Angeles radio station. He recently authored a study that found Asian restaurants saw an 18% drop in customers compared with non-Asian restaurants in the same communities in 2020, equating to more than $7 billion in lost revenue.

In total, Yelp said, it removed 26,500 business reviews last year that violated its rules about hate speech, threats or lewdness, an overall increase of 1,300 over the year before.

Noorie Malik, Yelp’s vice president of user operations, that the company is “aggressive” when it comes to taking down “unreliable” reviews, including those that contain hate speech.

“The trust and safety of the Yelp community is a top priority,” Malik wrote in a statement emailed to the AP. “Which is why we continue to heavily invest in both technology and human moderation.”

SPREAD OF ONLINE HATE

Hate speech incites violence and intolerance. The devastating effect of hatred is sadly nothing new. However, its scale and impact are now amplified by online social media platforms. Hate speech – including online – has become one of the most common ways of spreading divisive rhetoric on a global scale, threatening peace around the world, according to a United Nations report on Hate Speech.

The explosion of hate speech, further exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic, represents an unprecedented challenge for our societies, says the UN report. "Although hate speech has always existed, its ever-growing impact fueled by digital communication can be devastating not only for those targeted, but also for societies at large."

Yelp's actions against hate contrasts with the policies of Twitter's Musk, who fancies himself as a free speech champion.

The UN's High Commissioner Volker Türk who heads up Office of the High Scommissioner of Human Rights, had recently penned an open letter to Musk, emphasized that free speech did not mean “a free pass to spread harmful disinformation that results in real world harms."

Volker writes that human rights law is clear: "Freedom of expression stops at hatred that incites discrimination, hostility or violence. We see too often that the spread of hatred and hate speech against people of African descent, and other groups, not only undermines their rights but creates major fissures in societies. These are increasingly difficult to overcome and a source of various forms of destabilisation within countries.”

In a detailed statement, more than two dozen UN-appointed independent human rights experts - including representatives from three different working groups and multiple Special Rapporteurs - called out chief executives of social media companies  by name, saying that the companies they lead “must urgently address posts and activities that advocate hatred, and constitute incitement to discrimination, in line with international standards for freedom of expression.

READ the United Nations report on Hate Speech

The experts consulted by the UN say that allowing and tolerating incitement to hatred and expression, or advocacy of hatred against ... marginalized groups, “not only encourages the perpetrators, but also constitutes a continuous source of chronic race-based traumatic stress and trauma.”

The presence of racial hatred further undermines confidence on the part of those impacted, in using social media and seeking justice.

“It is especially alarming” considering that so many youngsters “live a significant part of their lives” online, they added.

In the letter addressed to Twitter's Musk, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai, who heads Google’s parent company Alphabet, Apple’s Tim Cook, “and CEOs of other social media platforms”, should “centre human rights, racial justice, accountability, transparency, corporate social responsibility and ethics, in their business model.”

The letter continued, “We urge all CEOs and leaders of social media to fully assume their responsibility to respect human rights and address racial hatred.”

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter.

United Nations report on Hate Speech

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This is no joke: DJ Steve Aoki is going to the moon

Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, center, names his crew of creatives heading to the moon.

Internationally renown DJ Steve Aoki is one of  the group of non-astronauts going to the moon.

Japanese multi-billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, 47,  picked a diverse group of civilians to join him and Aoki as his companions for SpaceX's first all-civilian mission to the moon. 

“Since I was a little child I was dreaming of going to the Moon. It’s becoming more and more real every day," says Aoki. "Still hard to believe but very excited and grateful for this amazing once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. To the Moon!”

A year ago, Maezawa put out a call for potential crew members. He would pay for their tickets. He says he got more than a million applications from around the world.

The crew includes: 

• Choi Seung Hyun, better known as T.O.P. from the Korean boy band BIGBANG; 
• Tim Dodd, who's known for creating space-themed content as a photographer and host of YouTube channel Everyday Astronaut; 
• Rhiannon Adam, a photographic artist from Ireland who now works in London and the US, 
• Yemi A.D., a designer, director, choreographer and non-profit org founder from the Czech Republic;
• Brendan Hall, a filmmaker who directed projects for National Geographic;
•  Karim Iliya, a filmmaker who documents whales, birds and other threatened species; 
• Dev D. Joshi, an actor from India, 

Backups are snowboarding Olympic gold medalist Kaitlyn Farrington and Japanese dancer Miyu. 

This will be the second trip to space for Maezawa. He spent 12 days on the International Space Station last year which he videotaped to document life on the ISS.

Maezawa, the founder of Zozotown, a fashion e-tailer, is valued at $3 billion, and ranks among the top 20 richest people in Japan. 

Musk would not reveal the exact cost of the upcoming voyage to the moon, but said it would cost the same as a trip to the ISS, which is $70-million.

The SpaceX/dearMoon 6-day trip to will circle the moon then return immeditely. The space outing is tentatively scheduled to launch sometime next year aboard Elon Musk's private spacefaring company’s Starship rocket. However, Musk's company is notoriously known for its delays. 

Maezawa bought all the spots for this flight in 2018. He wanted a crew of creatives who would hopefully inspire others to the wonders of space travel.

“I’m very thrilled to have these amazing people join me on my journey to the Moon," said Maezawa, "and excited to see what inspiring creations they come up with in space.”

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter.

Tesla, investigators clash on why car on autopilot crashed, killing its driver

Investigators examine the Tesla after the crash and fire killed its driver.

WALTER HUANG had just bought the Tesla Model X for himself for his 38th birthday. He turned on the Autopilot on his drive to work on March 23. His car suddenly slammed into a safety barrier and burst into flames killing Huang.

Huang's family, residents of Foster City, CA., has hired the law firm Minami Tamake to explore legal options.

"The Huang family intends to file a wrongful death lawsuit against Tesla and, possibly, its subcontractors involved in the design and construction of the Autopilot system," said the lawyers in a statement.

"Mrs. Huang lost her husband, and two children lost their father," said B. Mark Fong, a partner at Minami Tamaki LLP. 

"The family wants to investigate this incident and help ensure that this tragedy does not happen to other consumers who buy semi-autonomous vehicles. Our goal as the family's attorneys is to protect public safety, by ensuring the technology behind semi-autonomous cars is safe before it is released on the roads, and its risks are not misrepresented to the public."
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is investigating the accident involving the all-electric car. The agencies are also investigating the battery fire that followed the crash.

Tesla defended the safety record of its driver-assistance system and placed blame on Huang. 

The electric carmaker said the auto had activated Autopilot, raising new questions about the semi-autonomous system that handles some driving tasks. The company said vehicle logs from the accident showed no action had been taken by Huang before the crash and that he had received warnings to put his hands on the wheel.
Friday (April 13) on CBS This Morning, Tesla founder Elon Musk said the vehicle's Autopilot was not the problem. "The system worked as described, which is, it's a hands-on system. It is not a self-driving system."

The company warns drivers to remain alert and keep hands on the steering wheel while on Autopilot and Tesla released data saying Huang had his hands off the wheel for six seconds before the crash.

Tesla dropped out of the investigation because the company had disagreements with the NTSB over the release of details about the accident. NTSB says it dropped Tesla and the automaker says it withdrew from the investigation.
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