Elon Musk did a Nazi salute. I’m Tim Walz.
Since he’s now officially part of the government this is actually censorship.
You don’t lose the right, as an individual, to file lawsuits just because you’re working for the government. That’s not using the government’s authority; it’s something that’s available to any individual. Musk can sue without running into First Amendment restrictions on government action.
However, he might have a harder time winning such a lawsuit insofar as he might be more of a public figure due to serving in the government. The bar for defamation is higher for public figures in the US.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation
A series of court rulings led by New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964) established that for a public official (or other legitimate public figure) to win a libel case in an American court, the statement must have been published knowing it to be false or with reckless disregard to its truth (i.e. actual malice).
Hard to argue he’s not a public figure already.
Gertz v Welsh: He probably is an individual who has “…assumed roles of especial prominence in the affairs of society. Some occupy positions of such persuasive power and influence that they are deemed public figures for all purposes. More commonly, those classed as public figures have thrust themselves to the forefront of particular public controversies in order to influence the resolution of the issues involved. In either event, they invite attention and comment.”
Not gonna check if that’s still good law. Westlaw, you are dead to me.
He never denied it.
Would love if it would go to trial (he will make sure it won’t) and court deciding that it indeed a Nazi salute.
There’s nothing even remotely similar, because in the past 80 years we were trying to make sure no one confused us accidentally with Nazis.
Yea, which is the damning part! The whole “misunderstanding” can be wrapped up by by a single sentence: Sorry guys, that wasn’t that and I hope nazis gonna get pegged by living electric poles!
He thinks, “can’t we all get beyond this Nazi stuff?” like he said in Germany, while promoting Nazis, is going to make it all go away.
The funny thing is in Germany, you can kinda punch a nazi! You can definitely punch one if you are jewish and you might be able to otherwise depending on the judge! In the past several attorneys argued successfully that even the mere presence of nazis can existentially be dangerous and feeling threatened is justified!
I think it would be really funny if someone invited musky :3
Elon Musk, the Nazi?
It is so obvious Mush knew what he was doing. He was positively bursting with that fifth grade “I’m going disrupt the whole class with this outburst” energy.
And then you get to the grossness of the billionaires grinning and cheering in the background while he did it.
The reason he did it (besides being off his rocker on K) was that he expected the crowd to reciprocate. The crowd cheered, but he hoped they would return the salute. It was a litmus test of how far they’d gotten in terms of total mental control of their drones.
I don’t think he thought that far ahead. I think he likes being the edgiest of edgy boys. He’s also a gigantic loser, a living repudiation of the idea of a meritocracy, and a Nazi. BUT he is also the guy who unironically called himself “Dark, gothic MAGA” and did stupid little jumps to try and do some pseudo ymca bullshit by making an X with his body.
Dudes a cringe lord like before anything else, imo.
