 "Argentine President Javier Milei. File image/ AP")
Criticising “woke ideology” in a passionate speech at the World Economic Forum, Argentina’s President Javier Milei on Thursday defended the “innocent” hand gesture made by US billionaire Elon Musk this week.
Musk sparked controversy this week by using hand gestures at an inauguration event for US President Donald Trump that were likened to the Nazi salute.
According to AFP, at the WEF in Davos, Milei said his “dear friend Musk” has been “unfairly vilified by wokeism in recent hours for an innocent gesture that only means… his gratitude to the people”.
The libertarian leader praised Musk and other likeminded leaders such as Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele.
“Slowly an international alliance has been formed of all those nations that want to be free and that believe in the ideas of freedom,” he was quoted as saying.
Milei then turned his sights on the WEF itself.
“I must say, forums like this one have been protagonists and promoters of the sinister agenda of ‘wokeism’ that is doing so much harm to the West,” AFP quoted Milei as saying to the audience of global business and political A-listers.
He said “the mental virus of woke ideology” was “the great epidemic of our time that must be cured. It is the cancer that must be removed”.
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More ShortsWith inputs from agencies