Example https://lemm.ee/post/54155328/17905549 and https://lemm.ee/post/55188600
I have witnessed multiple people do this, and it never feels like it’s done in good faith. They assert that “Only Elon Musk knows what his intentions are, and unless he explicitly states what his intentions were, you cannot speak for his intentions”. They say that the accusation that he is a Nazi is slander for this reason.
I’m wondering what the name of this kind of tactic is. They’ll say “You cannot speak for another person’s intentions” while sometimes also saying “What was perceived did not match his intentions” and “The Romans also did that salute”. In the process they will also state several times that they are not defending Nazis and that they hate Nazis.
If I stick my arm out in front of me and it looks like a Nazi salute, but I tell you that I only did it because I’m autistic and don’t understand social norms even though I run a multinational corporation, meet with world leaders, and have a ton of nationalist and racist content on my social media, am I a Nazi?
To actually answer your question, it’s called plausible deniability. This exact question has actually been asked here before in recent weeks, was that also you?
I’d call it “implausible deniability”, everyone knows what it was, but people can weasel around and deny it and pretend it meant something / nothing / whatever instead of actually doing something useful.
Even if Musk came out and said it wasn’t a nazi salute I’d have a hard time believing it after he unbanned nazis on twitter, pushed their rhetoric, cozied up to right wing parties… and his face looked more like he was ripping his heart out than giving it to someone. “The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”