"From Heart to Mars": Germany responds to Musk's Nazi salute during the inauguration.

In Germany, the reaction to Elon Musk's apparent Nazi salute during Trump's inauguration has been somewhat muted, which the tech billionaire himself claimed was "deliberately misunderstood."

Some labeled it an undeniable fascist gesture, while others urged caution and suggested convincing Musk to provide his own explanation for the incident.

However, Michel Friedman, a prominent German-French publicist and former vice president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, unequivocally condemned the salute, calling it a "disgrace" in an interview with the daily newspaper Tagesspiegel.

He argues that by making this gesture, Musk demonstrated that a "dangerous point has been reached for the entire free world."

Friedman, who comes from a family of Polish Jews, almost none of whom survived the Holocaust, stated that he was shocked when he saw the gesture. From his perspective, it was clearly a Nazi "Heil" – a Hitler salute, despite attempts to downplay its significance.

"I thought that the breaking of taboos has reached a point that is dangerous for the entire free world. Brutality, dehumanization, Auschwitz, Hitler, and all of that. A mass murderer, a warmonger, a person for whom people were just numbers," he commented.

In his interview, Friedman called on Musk to show political responsibility.

"Was the hand movement an expression of his political identity? That wouldn’t be so surprising. Elon Musk massively posts and allows others to post anti-Semitic tweets on X," the publicist noted.

This gesture has become a sign of how "democracy in the U.S. is under threat," he said.

Almost all of Friedman’s family perished in the German Nazi death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. Thanks to German entrepreneur Oskar Schindler, only his parents and grandmother were saved.

Musk made this gesture while speaking on stage before Donald Trump's arrival yesterday at the Capital One Arena in Washington. He sincerely thanked Trump’s supporters and then placed his right hand on his heart and sharply and quickly raised it upward. He then repeated the gesture in another direction, saying, "My heart is with you."

Later, the billionaire responded to criticism of his behavior on his platform X: "The 'everyone is Hitler' attack is sooo tired," adding a sleeping emoji to his post.

Background. To read about how the world's wealthiest individuals – including Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg – donated at least $1 million each to Trump's inauguration, check out the Mind article "Behind the Scenes of Trump's Inauguration: Why It's Really an Expensive Affair and Who the 'Digital Oligarchs' Are."