Corporate news media is terrified of being sued for libel by Musk, even though it was obviously a Nazi salute. So they use words like “seemed” and “appeared” to avoid saying the obvious.

But the problem is, if you want to be taken seriously as a “news” organization, then you have to speak truth to power and that’s going to make you a lot of enemies. Companys have legal departments to minimize their risk, but in the case of journalism, that department exists to get you OUT of trouble not to keep you from ever getting into it.