Elon Musk slammed after dragging Taylor Swift into 'Nazi salute' controversy

Elon Musk is still trying to justify the one-armed gesture he made at President Trump's inauguration - and now he's dragging Taylor Swift into the controversy, much to the anger of her fans.

The billionaire owner of X, formerly Twitter, was criticised by people who say he appeared to make a 'Nazi salute' when he took to the stage in the Capitol One Arena, Washington on Monday (January 20).

As Musk thanked the crowd for "making it happen", he then thumped his right hand over his heart and shot the same arm out into the air straight ahead of him and then did it once again to the people behind him.

The moment has sparked a debate as on the one hand, people have compared it to a Nazi salute, but there have been others who have defended the 53-year-old who has been resharing posts who agree with him.

How has Taylor Swift been dragged into all this?

Well, Musk has been sharing reposts defending him and two of them have included out-of-context posts comparing a screengrab of Taylor Swift waving.

"My god. Not her too," one post read while the second read: "Does this mean Swifties = Hitler youth?" and also included a photo of Adolf Hilter doing the Nazi salute.

Fact-checking website Snopes has confirmed the image of Swift is fake, citing a report from fact-checking organisation the Polish Pravda Association which says an unidentified user "horizontally mirrored the picture, making it appear as if she extended her right arm — the arm designated for performing a Nazi salute."

In the original undoctored image, Swift extended her left arm as she blew a kiss and waved to the crowd during a concert performance on ABC's "Good Morning America" back in 2014 which can be viewed on YouTube.

- YouTubeyoutu.be

At the time of writing, Swift has not publicly responded to Musk's reposts.

How have the Swifties responded?

As you can imagine this hasn't gone down well among Swift's fans who have taken to Reddit to express their anger at Musk.

One person wrote: "Taylor, please sue. You have the "f*** you" money. Please do it".

"This is absolutely disgusting," another person said.

Someone else added: "This is the one time I'm gonna actually say this, but Swifties... This is your f****** moment to shine. Rise up on this fool! I'm sat".

"His obsession with Taylor is beyond weird," a fourth person commented.

What the last comment is referring to is when Musk previously (and bizarrely) offered to impregnate Swift after she endorsed Kamala Harris in the presidential election last year.

“Fine Taylor … you win … I will give you a child and guard your cats with my life,” the Tesla and SpaceX CEO wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Elsewhere, Elon Musk condemned over Holocaust 'jokes' following salute controversy.

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