Following Musk’s lead, ‘my heart goes out to you’ takes off as far-right catchphrase
6 words Musk said after his controversial hand gesture were an alibi. Now some are calling it hate speech.
Elon Musk gestures while speaking during an inauguration event at Capital One Arena on Jan. 20, 2025. Photo by Getty Images
By Louis Keene, Jake WassermanJanuary 27, 2025
As Elon Musk’s controversial hand gesture at a Trump inauguration rally was widely compared to a Nazi salute, Musk’s defenders pointed to the six words he said immediately afterward as proof it meant something else.
“The thing at the 55 second mark, where he grabs his chest and says, ‘My heart goes out to you,’ is supposed to be a deliberate Nazi salute?” the conservative political columnist Jonah Goldberg wrote on the social platform X alongside a clip of the video. “Sorry, not buying it.”
The phrase seemed to create the benefit of the doubt for the gesture, even though Musk never clarified its intent and seemed to enjoy the chaos it created.
Meanwhile, in the week since Musk made the gesture onstage, the phrase has gone from alibi to ironic right-wing catchphrase — and a standard accompaniment to imitations of the gesture. In social media posts, selfies and video clips, as well as on fan merchandise for sale online, “My heart goes out to you” increasingly appears to stand for the very message it supposedly discounted.
My heart goes out to you all! pic.twitter.com/1qHP2F49OJ
— Floridamanjames (@floridamanjames) January 26, 2025
The inversion of seemingly innocuous expressions has become a signature of the online right in recent years. After a reporter misinterpreted NASCAR fans chanting “F— Joe Biden” as “Let’s go, Brandon,” the latter phrase became a ubiquitous stand-in for the former. And the “OK” hand gesture became an officially recognized hate symbol in 2019 following a campaign by online trolls to link the gesture to white supremacy.
Now posts employing the phrase “My heart goes out to you,” often with an emoji of a person raising their hand, abound on X (the platform Musk acquired in 2022 as Twitter). One TikTok user named Allie Phillips compiled video clips of people saying it while performing the gesture.
“Some people are getting really bold on the internet,” Phillips said in the video.
@.allie.phillips They’re exposing themselves online doing a very bad thing. The internet is forever people, do better. #myheartgoesouttoyou ♬ original sound - Allie Phillips
Using a TikTok euphemism for “Nazi,” another user called the phrase “a Yahtzee salute in word form” and implored viewers to report comments that contain the phrase as hate speech.
One poster on the online message board 4chan agreed. “The Nazi salute is now legal if one says ‘My heart goes out to you,'” the user wrote, in a post that was later deleted.
In several T-shirts for sale on Etsy, the words accompany an image of Musk making the gesture. The online retailer Forbidden Clothes, which specializes in transgressive graphic tees, sells one that features the phrase under the letter ‘o’ followed by a slash — web shorthand for the sieg heil. “Such a beautiful message,” reads the product description.
Etsy did not reply to a request for comment.
The mimicry has gotten at least one public official in trouble. A Republican town supervisor in eastern Pennsylvania resigned Saturday amid outrage that followed a viral TikTok video in which she pounded her chest three times, lifted her right hand up in a gesture similar to Musk’s and repeated the phrase.
Even before his post containing Holocaust puns and speech to the German far-right party, there were reasons to wonder if Musk’s follow-up line was cover for the gesture that preceded it. The expression “My heart goes out to you” is typically offered in the context of condolences; at the inauguration rally, Musk was celebrating, and he led into the gesture by thanking the crowd for delivering victory to Trump.
“I just want to say thank you for making it happen. Thank you,” he said.
I’ve seen a lot of posts today mocking Elon Musk for being autistic and calling him a Nazi for making a gesture while thanking Trump supporters. What propaganda networks don’t show you is what he said after: “My heart goes out to you.” This is how hoaxes are born. Defund legacy… pic.twitter.com/RPg5p6DVRL
— Sasswatch (@Sasswatcher) January 21, 2025
Musk also had, as many X users pointed out, seemingly conveyed “My heart goes out to you” in a 2023 appearance by forming a heart shape with his hands over his chest, then gesturing outwards with both.
So it seems that Elon DOES KNOW the difference between "my heart goes out to you" and a Nazi salute. pic.twitter.com/quLkhV5fln
— Pekka Kallioniemi (@P_Kallioniemi) January 23, 2025
But interpretations of the Jan. 20 gesture — Musk clapped his right hand to his chest, then thrust his arm outward diagonally with his palm down; then, he turned to face the other side of the arena and repeated it — largely broke along political lines, with the right painting criticism as a bad-faith attack from the left.
Some Jewish community leaders, like the ADL’s Jonathan Greenblatt, were among those defending Musk after the speech. The ADL, which criticized a subsequent Musk post containing several Holocaust puns, did not respond to a request for comment.
Musk has periodically faced criticism for engaging with antisemitic tropes and public figures. He has on multiple occasions promoted Holocaust deniers on X, including by revoking the ban on Nick Fuentes and reposting a video in which a podcaster claimed millions of people “wound up dead” in the Holocaust due to Germany’s lack of preparation.
But Musk’s Jewish defenders say that he is a supporter of Israel, bringing up his tour of Kibbutz Kfar Aza, a site of the Oct. 7 attacks, in November 2023, and the necklace referencing the Israeli hostages he wore upon his return during an appearance at a New York Times event. Musk said at the event that he planned to wear the necklace until every hostage was returned home, but he has not appeared publicly wearing it since then. On Sunday, Musk posed for a photo with the family of hostage Itay Chen.
Musk also visited Auschwitz last year, though the partner of a Holocaust survivor who joined him on the private tour later said Musk had been “utterly detached” during the tour and only seemed to care about how he looked.
X did not respond to the Forward’s request for comment.
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