In addition to my last article’s musings, and as a neurodivergence ally, I also want to say a few things about Musk and his hand gesture, because it all comes back to what I said in “Inauguration Week”. Please note that the following was written to be delivered in audible form; it is not my usual writing style.

I want to clarify a few things regarding autism, as there has been so much misinformation in the media, and what’s happened may have extremely harmful consequences for the autism and neurodivergent community. As someone who is neurodivergent and very much part of that community, I can’t stay silent.   

I’ve read articles and comments that blame what happened on Musk being autistic. This is both true and very wrong; it is all related to the fact that he’s autistic, but his autism is neither the reason nor an excuse for what happened.

As a neurodivergent person myself, I’m going to give you my perspective, and I’ll try to be as concise as I can be.

Let’s be clear. There was nothing controversial about that hand gesture. That was a Nazi salute, and Musk knew that that’s what he was doing. I do think, though, that he might not have planned to do it, and the way it happened may be a direct result of his being autistic. Bear with me here, I’m not excusing this horrible act. It happened, and it was in no way “just the awkward body language of an autistic man”, as so many people seem to think.

In fact, I want to be VERY CLEAR on this, what I’m going to say now is in no way whatsoever an excuse for what he did; there is no excuse; he is an extremely dangerous individual with fascist views. But it’s not because he’s autistic. 

It is extremely important to differentiate Musk’s behaviour from that of the general autism community. There has been so much speculation in the aftermath of what’s happened and a huge amount of misinformation about autism and neurodivergence in the media, and some things that have been written are very dangerous and harmful.

What I saw during the inauguration ceremony was a Nazi salute; there’s no doubt in my mind, but I also saw an autistic man who is finally finding some weird sort of redemption. And who is very likely part of what’s called “Aspie Supremacism”. This is a term that’s been in the media in connection with Musk but also incel culture and white supremacy circles. In short, it is an ideology based on the belief that people with Aspergers are superior to other autistic people but also non-autistic people.

Let me try and explain this as briefly as possible: 

The name derives from what used to be called Aspergers’ Syndrome; you might be familiar with this term, and you might not even know that it was removed from usage in 2013, which was incredibly late, after decades of researchers and clinicians fighting to have it removed. 

Hans Asperger was a Nazi involved in a multitude of horrendous schemes and projects. As we all know, the Nazis were trying to eliminate not only Jewish people but also people with physical and mental disabilities. Remember, that was a time when autism research was very rudimentary. Dr. Asperger established that there were children on the autism spectrum who he deemed intelligent, maybe even with a higher IQ than their peers, or what we now call “gifted”, as they exhibited extraordinary skills, for example, with numbers. You get the picture. They were more often than not white boys, and Asperger famously wrote that “the autistic personality is an extreme variant of male intelligence”. Girls weren’t part of this research because, as a rule, autistic girls on that part of the autism spectrum can mask their autistic traits so well that they wouldn’t be considered to be autistic (that’s a whole other subject I will not cover here but will write about).

So, “Aspergers Syndrome” is no longer used; this type of autism is now part of what we call the autism spectrum. You still see it used to describe so-called “high-functioning” autistic people, as opposed to “low-functioning”, however, this is also very controversial terminology, and people are trying to find less misleading terms. Autistic people themselves have different opinions on this. “Low-support needs” autism is another term to describe this subset of autism, but that is also not an official, universally accepted term. There’s also a division of opinion when it comes to classifying autism as a disorder or disability, but I don’t want to complicate things here. 

Autism is a very wide spectrum, and it’s not a linear one, so when you say two people are at opposite ends of the spectrum, it doesn’t mean one is all the way on the left and the other all the way on the right; it’s much more complex as there are so many variations. 

Low-masking and high-masking are other describing terms. That’s why you can’t say someone is a little bit autistic or more autistic than someone else. If you’re autistic, you’re autistic, but the way you present can be highly varied. Some people have no or little ability to mask their symptoms and are thus more recognizably autistic than those who can mask well (and are often dismissed, or not even aware they are autistic). I hope this makes sense.

There has been a lot of research in recent years, even since 2013, when the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) was updated. It is very promising, and there are a lot of new determining factors, for example, you can now be diagnosed as having both ADHD and autism (ASD), which was not considered possible before that. All these new findings and the new screening options explain why there are so many people being diagnosed now at an older age. Again, a topic for another time. 

That’s my little autism and neurodivergence lecture in a nutshell.

Back to Aspie Supremacism.

Based directly on Asperger’s research, the fundamental idea of AS is that there is a subcategory of autistic individuals who show extreme levels of cognitive abilities and logical thinking, which marks them as superior; those are predominantly male, white-skinned, and with a highly productive job. Does that remind you of someone?

If you look at Musk’s interviews, comments and tweets, you definitely get the idea that he thinks of himself as very special, and not just himself but also his son X, who he has openly said is autistic, just like himself.

So how do you become this way? As I said above, the vast majority of the autistic community both male and female reject this concept.

In this man who was awkwardly running up to the stage last Monday, I can recognise the little boy who was shamed and bullied in the society he grew up in in the 70s. Musk has actually talked about being bullied, I didn’t even have to guess. Bullied for being different and awkward, saying the wrong thing, stimming – we all saw him stimming at the ceremony, doing that head and eye rolling movement. Incidentally, I do exactly the same thing and recognised it as stimming. It’s an involuntary thing, you can look it up, I won’t go into that here. 

This is a little boy who internalised a lot of negativity during childhood. Again, I do not excuse what he did. But he was probably stopped from doing the things he wanted to do or in the way he wanted to do them, maybe shamed for them. What confirmed this for me was another clip I saw, a recent podcast interview with Tucker Carlson (It pains me to even mention this name, but I include it in case you’d like to look for the clip), and he’s got his little son X on his lap, who blurts out “we’re in SpaceX, and we quietly just do whatever we want”, and then cackles hysterically. It chilled me to the core. It was the creepiest, scariest thing I’ve heard a child say.

But it made me think, wow, this is something his dad must have told him, instilled in him, like a sort of mantra, and that is something a parent who wasn’t able to do this when he was a child himself would make sure to instil in his own child. I actually relate to this, as a parent. Like, you always want to give your child what you yourself wanted and didn’t have, right? I think the parents among us can feel this. My guess is that at some point, someone told him how special he was, and he now repeats this with his own child. He himself has talked about how he had to build this mindset to set himself apart from his negative experiences. This is something we see in people with a superiority complex – a defence mechanism against stigma, a way to tell yourself, “I’m better than all of you; you might be bullying me but you’re inferior so I don’t care.” The many tweets and interviews in which he said these exact words – “I don’t care” are a testament to this. I won’t go into how his childhood in South Africa and the views and actions of his parents have shaped him, but nothing tells me that what he did last Monday was anything but a fascist symbol.

That’s why the discussion about how to classify autism is so fierce. On the one hand, classifying it as a “disorder” implies that it’s a disease and something defective. But on the other hand, the narrative of autism as a “superpower”, while putting a positive slant on it, which is essential for someone feeling alienated because of their autism, can lead to dangerous deductions, delusions and ideologies such as “Aspie Supremacism”.

You can see all this in him, that little boy who was bullied but then decided he was special, better than others, and he’s finally running up onto the stage he feels he deserves. And he’s awkward as hell with it all – this isn’t the first time people have mentioned how awkward he is, and if you’ve seen that SNL show from 2021, you know what I mean. I still cringe on his behalf; it was barely watchable. He actually openly talked about having Aspergers on that show.

I personally feel this awkwardness because I am horrendously awkward myself, and it’s something a lot of neurodivergent people experience and are shamed for. I’ve had so many moments in my life when I moved awkwardly or said something at an inappropriate time, or even an inappropriate thing, sometimes I manage to stop myself before I do it, but often, I verbally or physically do things I don’t intend to do at that very moment. I have been shamed for this many times. So I can see this in him, and part of me thinks that maybe he hadn’t planned to do the Nazi salute when he did, it just came out of him. Again, it’s not an excuse, and the fact is he knew that it was a fascist symbol, and that is his view, his character, how he was raised to be. What I see in that moment is an extremely awkward person absolutely loving the moment, high on his own power, and deliriously happy that he’s made it. He feels superior to everybody else, and he’s doing what he’s always wanted to do, and nobody is telling him no. 

All this makes him an extremely dangerous individual with far too much power.

I feel like he is an example of what can happen when we have a society that is not inclusive, when someone is raised in a society like that. A society that shames people, scares people, ostracises people and divides people into better and worse humans. And a society that has no problem idolising some individuals while kicking others in the dirt, which seems to be exactly what Trump and the current US administration is aiming for.

There couldn’t be anything more ironic than having someone like Musk standing on stage and doing what he did. And that’s why we need to create a society that is inclusive and compassionate and that holds healthy space for those who are different to ourselves. 

And I know there are going to be comments like “well everybody has to deal with some level of shaming and criticism, thats’s life and it doesn’t make them a psychopath or murderer or a nazi”. No, of course not. And as I said earlier, just because someone’s neurodivergent doesn’t mean that you become that either. But shaming and fear and ostracising and division do something to your brain, and they mess things up. As we’ve seen. 

I guess that was a long and convoluted way of saying to be kind, be open-minded, and learn about other people in order to be more tolerant. Educate yourself. Be human.

And don’t stay silent.