Hearts & Minds: Gesture politics. Deconstructing musk’s salute

He already was a divisive figure. Now he has taken his splitting of opinion to another level. However, you view it, Elon Musk’s salute is a comms disaster. He’s apologised, saying it wasn’t what many people thought. The trouble with Musk is that he’s a genius, so someone who can reverse a space rocket into a dock as if it was a car being parked is not regarded as capable of making simple mistakes. He is also a provocateur who loves to goad. Add to that Musk’s stream of jokey extreme comments on his own X platform, and some give him the benefit of the doubt while others are in no doubt whatsoever.

The row shows no sign of abating. Caught in the middle are his brands. More than 100 communities have banned users from posting links to X in protest at his gesture; Tesla has seen his image and ‘Heil Tesla’ projected on to its Berlin factory; politicians and commentators from left and right continue to defend and condemn. The problem with what he did is that it really is not a place you can go. What you can’t do then is to make light of it. Yes, say you’re sorry and it was a horrible error, you didn’t know what you were thinking, it most definitely was not a deliberate act. Then shut up. Making quips, poking fun at the sensitivity of your accusers, serves to negate the apology and to compound the original deed.

It's happened before. A business figure insisted he had not done something he was suspected of, that it was all a misunderstanding. He then sent emails to his friends full of what he thought were funny references, ridiculing the claim and belittling those that made it. One pal passed them on to someone who took a dim view and circulated them more widely. They reached those who were determining his fate. He was toast. TV presenter Gregg Wallace did the same. In December, the MasterChef co-host apologised for ‘any offence caused’ by his sexualised antics and comments. The use of ‘any’ did not help but it could have passed, except Wallace dismissed those complaining as ‘middle-class women of a certain age’. There was no way back. Ironically, his reactive strategy was said ‘to have been taken straight out of the Trumpian playbook’. A month later and here we are again, this time with the new president’s ‘first buddy’.

Chris Blackhurst is one of the UK’s foremost business journalists. He was previously Editor of The Independent and City Editor of the Evening Standard.