A Pennsylvania politician has resigned after posting a video where she mimicked Elon Musk’s infamous hand gesture at Donald Trump’s inauguration, which has been widely likened to a Nazi salute.
Laura Smith, a Republican in Montgomery County, resigned as a supervisor of Towamencin Township on Saturday after outcry over a TikTok video where she made a gesture resembling Musk’s.
“Just checking in on my friends who are struggling this week,” Smith says in the video, which she deleted but which can be seen here. She taps her chest three times and extends her arm the way the tech billionaire did. “My heart goes out to you,” she says, smiling brightly. “Hope you’re doing OK.”
Smith later told Philadelphia NBC affiliate WCAU in a statement that her video “has been greatly mischaracterised,” and that she removed the clip because she didn’t want to “give offence.”
“I abhor racism, anti-Semitic or discrimination in any fashion or form and my record as a township supervisor attests to my commitment to treat all people with dignity and respect,” she said.
Two of Smith’s colleagues on the township board condemned her post to Philadelphia ABC affiliate WPVI, calling it “repugnant” and “blatant antisemitism.”
Musk has been dismissive of the criticisms against him. On his social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, he wrote that “the ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is sooo tired.” He later posted a tweet that included multiple Nazi-related puns.
The Anti-Defamation League initially encouraged people to give Musk some grace, saying he’d “made an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute.” However, after Musk tweeted his Nazi wordplay, ADL executive director Jonathan Greenblatt addressed Musk on X, writing: “The Holocaust was a singularly evil event, and it is inappropriate and offensive to make light of it ... The Holocaust is not a joke.”
As for Smith, Andrew Goretsky, ADL Philadelphia regional director, told The Philadelphia Inquirer that her actions had “impacted and caused harm to the community which must be acknowledged.”
On Sunday, Smith announced her resignation on the Towamencin Township website, to “allow the Township to move forward without the encumbrance of the fallout of my video.”
In response, township officials said the board of supervisors intends to accept Smith’s resignation, and that the board “cannot and will not tolerate such conduct.”
Smith’s resignation comes days after critics of Musk suggested that people arguing his gesture was not a Nazi salute should do it in public themselves and live with the consequences.