On January 20, 2025, during Trump’s second inauguration, Elon Musk gave a short speech congratulating Trump during which he made what appeared to many to be a Nazi salute. Social media is divided on Musk’s gesture, either people are condemning it or defending Musk, brushing off his actions as harmless and well-meaning. But how did the mainstream media react to this? On the Media Bias Detector, Musk’s salute did not receive enough media attention to appear under the Events page of the dashboard.

The Media Bias Detector's model reviews the top 20 articles across 10 publishers, five times a day, to identify what stories received the most coverage. What's surprising is that a gesture which resembles the fascist and radical tendencies that led to the Second World War, was not given enough attention to make it to the top events in the three days after it took place, showcasing the mainstream media’s stance that it is important to talk about it, but not enough that it cracks through the algorithms that the digital world is ruled by.

After the inauguration, these were the most covered events on 1/21/25:

And again, coverage on Musk did not appear under the Events page for 1/22/25:

Three days after the inauguration, Musk does appear under Events page for 1/23/2025, but the event is titled: Elon Musk and Trump Clash Over AI Project- with zero mention of his salute.

Musk’s actions have been overshadowed by other events including Trump pardoning the Jan. 6 rioters, Trump’s proposed Birthright Citizenship Order, and snowstorms in the Southern US. But whether or not the lack of coverage is because of the prioritization of other Trump-related events or the media’s silence on the issue, Musk’s salute has largely stayed out of the spotlight in the mainstream media.

When a news event receives significant coverage, the Media Bias Detector will display the event and the outlets that covered it, allowing for easy comparisons between publishers. However, since it was not possible to compare coverage of Musk's salute on the Media Bias Detector, external sources were analyzed in order to further explore how outlets covered this story.

The salute drew criticism from The Guardian, which provided context on the gesture and included responses from German politicians; many of whom expressed shock that a gesture that Germany devoted many years to eradicating- and continues to have zero-tolerance towards- was broadcast live at a high-profile political event. This story was also picked by German outlets as well, including the prominent Süddeutsche Zeitung and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ).

On right-leaning outlets, many have come to Musk’s defense, most notably Elise Stefanik, Trump’s new U.N. ambassador pick. Back in December of 2023, Stefanik grilled university presidents on anti-semitism in congressional hearings, but has now dismissed allegations of anti-semitism when the accused is a Trump ally, as discussed in this Fox News article.

This lack of coverage also points to another problem: Elon’s salute was heavily discussed on X but this attention didn’t translate into the mainstream media. X is a major source of news for audiences- and this is a growing concern because of the prevalence of misinformation on the platform. Misinformation then becomes a larger problem as oligarchs have increasing control of social media platforms and influence over what narratives dominate the public discourse. By interacting with the dashboard, readers are able to see which stories are the most important to news outlets, but also what the media isn’t talking about.