I think he wants it removed because of the effect on Tesla. He’d prefer if he could do things without consequences for his actions.

On TV the heil reaches the target audience in a way of plausoble deniability, on the internet it can be perceived constantly, thought of, discussed. That breeds dissent much more than passive, temporary consumption.

That and he definetely wasn’t expecting the backlash to be as big as it was

In Musk logic: it’s not bad when he does it. It’s bad when people start discussing it, because they might come to a disapproving conclusion.