Seems like they're basically counting on many of them having no choice but to come back. Just like they're counting on them being willing to accept having basically no rights.
Because slavery is better than getting killed by gangs/cartels of course /s
I doubt Musk's salute was that deep. He's not some slick political operative. He's a 4chan dipshit who thought he'd be edgy and cool and tiptoe up to the line. He thought it would be much more ambiguous what he did and he'd "own the libs" by making them look like fools to the normies who genuinely wouldn't see it for what it actually was. He clearly was not expecting basically no one but the cultists on his side to not see what he did.