Communication is about both what you mean to say and what people hear. We can never be 100% sure what Elon meant to say, but for some reason a lot of people heard something concerning. But maybe it's just a small number of loud people online.

But it's an easy enough thing to test. Just go onto work tomorrow and do the same motion a bunch of times and ask people what they "hear". If they mostly hear you just being friendly then you'll know you're correct. Easy peasy.