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.
The extra nail in the coffin is that he didn’t apologize or show concern at all. He deflected with a bullshit comment about it being a roman salute even though that’s nonsense. Any sensible person in his shoes would have immediately said fuck nazis, that was dumb, I fucked up, not what I meant etc.
Then he goes and speaks at an AfD rally and says germany should move on from its embarrassing past or some nonsense. So if there weren’t already 5 nails in the coffin, he just filled it with c4 and blew it up.