On the heels of Donald Trump’s inauguration, Jon Stewart took stock of the “historic vibe shift” happening in the United States—including an awkward
On the heels of Donald Trump’s inauguration, Jon Stewart took stock of the “historic vibe shift” happening in the United States—including an awkward hand gesture from Tesla CEO Elon Musk that neo-Nazis themselves have reportedly recognized as Nazi-esque.
During Monday’s episode of The Daily Show, Stewart showed a clip of Musk delivering remarks at a post-inauguration event held at Washington, DC’s Capital One Arena. After thanking Trump supporters, Musk placed his hand over his heart before extending his arm forward, his palm downturned, in a gesture similar to the salutes adopted by fascist Italy and Germany in the 20th century.
“Charitably, I’m going to say that was just an awkward ‘My heart goes out to you’ gesture,” Stewart said, adding that Musk could have opted for making a heart with his hands. “You know, listen: It’s a fucking nerve-racking day. You’re not normally a public speaker. It’s a one-off gesture. Please try not to use it again,” the host reasoned.
Stewart then played additional footage of Musk repeating the gesture to the crowd seated behind him onstage. “Son of bitch!” the host exclaimed. “You really want to make sure that people in the back see it, I guess. I’m just gonna be generous and say maybe that was Elon’s attempt at ‘dabbing on the haters.’”
As Musk’s gesture went viral on Monday, the Anti-Defamation League defended the hand signal as “awkward” and “not a Nazi salute,” adding on Musk’s X platform: “In this moment, all sides should give one another a bit of grace, perhaps even the benefit of the doubt, and take a breath.”
Elsewhere in his monologue, Stewart took aim at inauguration attendees “who warned Americans to shun this wannabe fascist dictator called Trump” but appeared eager to fête Trump nevertheless: “‘Look at me, Ma! Oh, let’s go see Hitler and get a quick selfie first! Hello! Look at us! Ooh, a quick one for the ’gram!’”
Which spectators, specifically, was Stewart accusing of hypocrisy? “Former president [Barack] Obama was there. George Bush seemed kind of there…definitely high. Even Mike Pence showed up, I guess to let the crowd finish the job. Only Michelle Obama seemed to have the consistent ethical stance of saying, ‘When they go low, I stay the fuck home.’”
Aside from Musk, there were several other tech giants in attendance as Trump signed a number of sweeping executive orders, including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Meta cofounder Mark Zuckerberg, Apple CEO Tim Cook, and Google CEO Sundar Pichai. Stewart jokingly described the group as a “plethora of stocky, bald billionaires who all seemed to go to the same biohack life-extension clinic and say, ‘Give me the Lex Luthor.’”
The late-night host then riffed on the implications of so many powerful people appearing to be in Trump’s pocket. “Don’t be concerned that these tech titans control Google and TikTok and WhatsApp and Instagram and X, and any other way that we communicate in the year of our Lord 2025,” joked Stewart. “Because, you know, they’re not gonna censor us.”
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