Jon Stewart had a lot to say about Donald Trump’s inauguration ceremony on Monday. But one moment from the day’s event seemed to stop him in his tracks: Elon Musk’s dramatic hand gesture, which evoked to many the Nazi salute.
The Daily Show host was briefly left speechless by the clip of Musk making the gesture for the first time.
“OK. Uh... charitably, I’m going to say that was just an awkward ‘My heart goes out to you’ gesture,” Stewart said at first. Among the MAGA faithful, this has been the go-to defense of Musk. But the host hardly seemed convinced.
“You know, listen, it’s a f---ing nerve-wracking day. You’re not normally a public speaker. It’s a one-off gesture. Please try not to use it again,” Stewart told Musk, before playing the rest of the clip in which the billionaire turned around and did it again.
“Son of a b---h!” an exasperated Stewart said. “Really want to make sure the people in the back see it, I guess.”
“I’m just going to be generous and say, ‘Maybe that was Elon’s attempt at... dabbing on the haters?‘” Stewart joked. “I think it’s important in these troubled times for us to continue to dab.”
Beyond Musk, Stewart spoke about the presence of so many other multibillionaire social media owners at Trump’s inauguration, from Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg to TikTok founder Shou Zi Chew.
“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, because, you know, they’re not going to censor us,” Stewart joked.
He added, “And it doesn’t matter anyway, because I know in my heart we don’t need any of them, because we’ll always have you, messenger pigeon.”
Stewart then showed an image of a messenger pigeon, which raised its right wing in the same salute Musk made during his speech.
“No!” Stewart yelled. “Why, messenger pigeon? Why would you turn on me?!”
