My principle on giving the Hitler salute is to not do so publicly, or in the presence of elderly, Germans or jews you don’t know. Because whether you mean to be funny, try to provoke, or you’re a neo-nazi, it leaves room for ambiguity.
If I hadn’t a principle, I’d have to consider whether the social suicide of doing so is worth it. Musk could have thought of that, but he didn’t.
That still doesn’t make him a nazi. You need to actually believe that the genocide of Jews is worth pursuing. Or anything remotely resembling outright hatred of jews, and an idealisation of The Third Reich.
I also won’t post a dick pic, and this similarly does not discredit the argument I’m making:
Just because I won’t heil in public (I’m polite, and I have no points to make at 45 degrees), I won’t read Hitler into Musk’s arm waving, when he clearly does not follow up by justifying that he did, in fact, acknowledge the great work of Adolf Hitler. He didn’t because he doesn’t think Hitler was that great, because he’s not a nazi.
He’s not a nazi until he apologizes for not distancing himself from Hitler when he never said Hitler was great to begin with.
Otherwise: you’re a nazi until you publicly apologise for not leaving the subject matter unambiguous. And just saying you’re not is not enough, you have to apologise.