> This anti-Tesla sentiment seems to be purely isolated to online communities
The dramatic decline in Tesla purchases in European countries proves otherwise. Here in Europe, I've heard Tesla discussed negatively in office canteens and doctors' waiting rooms a lot since Musk's 'arm gestures'. One of the doctors at my local surgery had his Tesla covered in red paint recently.
Both sentiments exist in Europe at the same time. When I moved in where I live one year ago, there was one other Tesla parked in the area. Now there’s 5 more. And yes, Musk is the (negative) talking point in waiting rooms.
You mean he extended his heart out to the crowd twice? Yes, I don't think anyone debates that. Saying he made a nazi salute is the misinformation, Elon isn't a fascist any more than Biden was a communist or Michelle Obama was a man. This sort of low-IQ name-calling is exhausting
What's amusing about your comment is that Musk is on video doing a literal "my heart goes out to you" gesture in an older press event recording where he does not in fact give a nazi salute but instead does a heart shape with both his hands and extends it outward from his chest, showing that he's informed about the accepted version of that gesture.
And you may be misinformed of the context as well. He did the nazi salute because him and Vivek were being raked over the coals for their H1-B stance by the Bannon wing of MAGA and his bruised ego was clearly throwing a bone to the base of that wing to get into their good graces again.
Please don't engage in flamewars like this on HN. It's not the kind of topic that can be resolved with this kind of back-and-forth, and it's against the guidelines to use HN in this way, so please just avoid participating in them in future.
Please don't comment like this on Hacker News. HN is not for political/ideological battle, and whatever you're commenting about, we need you to avoid snark.
There's nothing to be gained by continuing to discuss the topic, as nobody is interested in change their minds about it. All comments in any subthreads about it should be flagged equally for being flamebait and a generic tangent. People who want to keep discussing it have much of the rest of the internet in which to do so.
The dramatic decline in Tesla purchases in European countries proves otherwise. Here in Europe, I've heard Tesla discussed negatively in office canteens and doctors' waiting rooms a lot since Musk's 'arm gestures'. One of the doctors at my local surgery had his Tesla covered in red paint recently.