Body language expert reveals 'hidden meaning' behind Barron Trump's bizarre hand gesture at inauguration

A body language expert has explained a variety of hand gestures and what they mean, including one done by Barron Trump at his father's inauguration.

While he was a young child when Donald Trump first became president back in 2017, he is significantly more grown up now as people have rather noticed.

Barron, now 18, is sort of the American equivalent of Gary Barlow's massive son, at 6'7, he tends to tower over pretty much everyone else around him.

There were a lot of eyes on him at the inauguration events, not least because his father called him out in front of everyone to say Barron had been suggesting podcasts to go on such as The Joe Rogan Experience, which Donald Trump claimed helped him connect with young voters.

The younger Trump also went up to his father's successor and predecessor as president, Joe Biden, to shake hands with him and his VP Kamala Harris who was defeated in the recent election.

Lip reader Jeremy Freeman said that Barron Trump had said 'g'day to you sir' to Biden and 'ma'am, good day' to Harris, and that Biden had said 'it's good to see you man'.

You can probably tell what this hand gesture means (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Meanwhile, at one point, Barron Trump was seated and put his hands together in a manner similar to Mr Burns from The Simpsons, a gesture which is known as the 'politician's steeple'.

According to body language expert Darren Stanton, when people do the 'politician's steeple', it's supposed to convey an 'authoritative position'.

Stanton told The Sun that the hand gesture is not meant to convey that someone thinks they're better than you, but that they feel in a position of authority at that particular moment.

The body language expert said this 'display of authority' could also mean 'evaluation' in some environments, and if you see someone doing the politician's steeple while tapping their fingers together, that can show they're giving what's being said a bit of a think.

According to the expert, this is an 'authoritative position' (X)

Stanton said tapping meant that the person doing it is 'considering what's being said' and 'thinking whether there is any merit to it'.

Elsewhere in the inauguration, Elon Musk twice performed a rather distinctive hand gesture with a significant amount of historical meaning.

Musk thumped his chest before extending his right arm up into the air fully extended as he stood before an audience, the South African businessman then turned around and repeated the gesture to a US flag.