‘Absolute Rubbish!’ Elon Musk’s Father Defends Son’s Controversial Hand Gesture: It’s ‘Not a Nazi Salute’

Errol Musk, the father of billionaire Trump surrogate Elon Musk, told NewsNation he couldn’t “see anything wrong with” his son’s controversial hand gesture on Wednesday, claiming it was “a universal salute.”

“What do you make, sir, of the suggestion that your son was making a Nazi salute up on stage?” asked NewsNation host Chris Cuomo during an interview with Musk.

Musk laughed before responding, “That’s absolute nonsense. Absolute rubbish. Rubbish. It’s a universal salute, or as you said, throwing his heart out, I suppose. Yeah, so it’s a universal thing for thousands of years. So that’s rubbish.”

Cuomo pressed, “What do you want to explain to people about how your son thinks in terms of helping them understand how to judge a behavior like that?”

“What behavior?” Musk shot back. “I can’t see anything wrong with that behavior. I’ve seen since then a number of photographs of Obama and uh, OAC, AOC, and so on using the same gesture. Nobody’s worried when they make that sort of gesture.”

He concluded, “So you know, again, it’s just rubbish. I don’t think it’s a talking point. It’s nonsense, you know? Just utter nonsense.”

Elon Musk received backlash on Monday after he made a gesture at President Donald Trump’s inauguration, which critics likened to a fascist or Nazi salute.

While even Musk’s allies struggled to find an excuse for the moment, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) claimed in a statement that it was “not a Nazi salute,” and was merely “an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm.”

Watch above via NewsNation.