Musk's gesture "very much a fascist salute" driven by attention-grabbing, expert says

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00:00analysis. Paul Jackson, Professor of the History of Radicalism and Extremism at

00:05the University of Northampton, joins us live. Paul, thanks for being with us. What

00:09do you make of that Musk salute? Well, I mean, I think it's not particularly

00:14surprising given the kind of the wider pattern behaviour we've seen from

00:18Musk over the past few years. I find it also quite interesting, I suppose, to see

00:24the kind of the debate about whether or not this should constitute a fascist

00:27salute. As a historian of fascism, I think that this very much is a fascist

00:32salute and it's quite clear, you know, what the intention was to symbolise.

00:37So, yeah, it's a very interesting development to see. I think one of the

00:42things to kind of say about it, though, and it kind of, in a way, undermines this

00:45whole segment, is one of the points of doing this sort of thing is to be

00:49provocative and it is to create these sorts of media appearances. Sometimes it

00:55feels a little fourth form, doesn't it? You know, sort of like an adolescent

00:59trying to shock for the sake of it. Well, perhaps. And, as I say, I think there is

01:05something attention-grabbing about this and I think that's probably quite a

01:09large part of the point of doing this sort of thing. As I say, I think the

01:12symbol is clearly a fascist salute. Whether that makes him a fascist is

01:16perhaps much more complex and debatable, let alone Donald Trump. So, I think we're

01:20seeing a kind of a particular kind of phenomenon here about seizing the

01:25agenda, creating shock and outrage, creating a certain kind of mood around

01:30the sense of the inauguration and such like. So, I think we need to be a little

01:34bit careful about not hype this as well. Indeed. So, let's not sort of, I should

01:40say, let's not hype it. But earlier this month, Musk sat down for a very, it's been

01:46described as an interview, but that would give it journalistic credence. It was a

01:49conversation, quite a fawning conversation, with the head of the

01:53Alternative für Deutschland, which is the far-right group in Germany and he

01:57was very praising and very bowed down to in many ways Alice Weidel, their leader.

02:03Doesn't that give the salute a different kind of context? Well, I mean, I don't

02:10think it's too tricky to kind of make the argument that Elon Musk is kind of

02:14severely engaging with sort of a far extreme right politics and that sort of

02:19agenda. In the UK, he's been supportive of people like Tommy Robinson as well. So, we

02:26can kind of see a kind of a long-standing pattern here. He's also

02:29been doing things over the last few years like reposting Beppe the Frog

02:34memes, which is quite a well-known far and extreme right symbol. I suppose the

02:39word fascism in particular has a, you know, sort of a specific set of meanings.

02:43And I suppose one of the things to kind of say about this, his defense, is that

02:48he has said that the fascism attack is quite overdone. Whatever we can say about

02:55the Trump election, there was quite a lot about fear-mongering around Trump being

02:59specifically fascist. That didn't seem to stop him getting elected. So, the word

03:04fascism and the meaning of fascism perhaps is also something in the modern

03:07context, something to think about here. Maybe it's losing a certain sense of

03:13aura or significance as well. I think you're right. I think it's been diluted

03:19completely because of the over-accusation of it, I think. And it's created this

03:24situation and more and more people are feeling more and more at home with those

03:27kind of extreme views, hard right, to give it a less explosive label, I suppose.

03:33And certainly that would be the case in the UK. Just to pick up on the Tommy

03:36Robinson remarks, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, the jailed far-right extremist, I think

03:42it's fair to say, who Musk says should lead the Reform Party rather than Nigel

03:48Farage. Nigel Farage, of course, famous for his stance creating Brexit and having

03:52very sort of like far-right, hard-right views, shall we say. And again, Musk

03:57interfering with things to create a more far-right agenda. Again, we're trying not

04:02to say this is controversial or trying to be controversialist about it.

04:06However, his actions and his gestures seem to point that way.

04:10Yeah, well, as I say, the word fascism is perhaps a little bit tricky. I think the

04:15word hard-right is perhaps a bit woolly and problematic. I think the word, the

04:20term far-right is quite sort of well understood as a general term. So he is in

04:26that far-right space, for sure. As I say, he's engaging with parties who are also in

04:29that far-right space, sometimes at the more legal end of the spectrum, sometimes

04:34crossing over the line into illegality, as we see with people like Robinson. So

04:38and as I say, he's kind of playing around with the various symbols and such

04:42like of that movement online as well through Twitter. So he's definitely in

04:47that space. I mean, you know, exactly how you might want to place him is perhaps a

04:52little open to debate. But that's where his politics very much seems to

04:56be. And as I say, that's a successful politics in America at the moment, more

05:00broadly. And that's, I find at least, quite a quite a worrisome development in

05:06the modern world. Add to that the fact that he is so rich, 400 billion dollars

05:11in his back pocket. He could go out and buy a football team tomorrow if he

05:14wanted to, couldn't he? He's got that kind of cash. If he didn't have that kind of

05:18cash, he might come across, say, as a kind of barroom boar who stands there sort of

05:22spouting off at the bar, that kind of thing. But he isn't that person. He's a

05:26very rich person who has the ear of the US president. And we're seeing policies

05:31from Trump, which are, I think, more and more extreme.

05:36Yes, as I say, I think making too many sort of straight comparisons with the

05:40Intour era and fascism is problematic, not least because you don't see the

05:44newness to what's being developed here. So this is something different. And

05:48that's probably why it's succeeding. You know, the sort of the truly neo-Nazi

05:51groups in America aren't getting elected, but they are getting a boost from all

05:56of this as well. But with Musk, perhaps in particular, one of the kind of the

06:03concerning things, I suppose, is also around the atmosphere, around the

06:06changing dynamics of social media, which obviously he's pioneering through his

06:10purchase of Twitter, now X. So the ways in which moderation and much more

06:15extreme content are becoming much more prevalent on those platforms. For a few

06:19years at the beginning of this decade, it seemed to be sort of traveling in the

06:22other direction. But now a lot of that moderation is going. Well, that's going

06:26to create an ever kind of more kind of complex and messy environment of

06:32problematic views, extremist views, all the rest of it being quite freely

06:36disseminated to large numbers of people online. So as well as having the ear of

06:41the president, as you put it, he has that power and they're connected as well.

06:46And that's probably how this this nexus has helped to sort of emerged.

06:50Indeed. Paul Jackson, pleasure speaking to you. Thank you for shedding light on

06:54the situation and give us your analysis. We really appreciate it. Paul Jackson,

06:57professor of the history of radicalism and extremism from the University of

07:01Northampton there in central England. Paul, thank you for joining us. We

07:05continue to watch all developments, of course, on Trump, Trump's entourage, Elon

07:09Musk and everything that's happening in the United States. Let's turn now to the

07:13Middle East.

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