Elon Musk has come under fire once again for supporting Palestine.
The globally recognized American tech entrepreneur who owns the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, alongside Space X and Tesla, is being criticized for endorsing credible news linked to Israel amid its bombardment of the besieged Gaza Strip that began on October 7.
Musk came under fire for agreeing with a post that claimed Jewish people were pushing “hatred against whites.”
The owner of X had responded to an anti-Semitic posting, endorsing it as “the actual truth.”
The initial tweet posted by @breakingbaht on November 15 read, “Jewish communties [sic] have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.”
Musk responded the same evening, “You have said the actual truth.” In another reply, he wrote, “I am deeply offended by ADL’s messaging and any other groups who push de facto anti-white racism or anti-Asian racism or racism of any kind.” Musk has feuded with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) before, threatening to sue over its accounting of hate speech on his social media network.
The ADL has been engaged in verbal attacks on Musk in recent weeks on social media.
The ADL’s CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, decried Musk’s endorsement of the anti-Semitic conspiracy. He wrote, “At a time when antisemitism is exploding in America and surging around the world, it is indisputably dangerous to use one’s influence to validate and promote antisemitic theories. #NeverIsNow.”
Musk continued the thread on Thursday morning by approving an X post by a Dutch conservative commentator reading, “Everyone is allowed to be proud of their race, except for white people, because we’ve been brainwashed into believing that our history was some how ‘worse’ than other races. This false narrative must die.”
Musk wrote, “Yeah, this is super messed up. Time for this nonsense to end and shame ANYONE who perpetuates these lies!”
Musk’s response evoked immediate and strong backlash, some condemning him for his “white supremacist conspiracy theory” while some showed anti-Semitic support for him.
Meanwhile, the ADL is said to be working in a coordinated manner with dozens of Zionist groups against Musk.
In their attacks on Musk, the ADL and ally organizations claim the billionaire is doing nothing to prevent the “epidemic of hate speech” on his platform.
Speaking to CNN on November 15, Greenblatt said the ADL has seen a surge in threats since Musk took over Twitter, linking it to anti-Semitism. “What starts online often ends up on the ground,” Greenblatt stated, referring to how the #BanTheADL hashtag jumped from X to actual protesters in recent days.
Musk came up with a telling image of the ADL which read, “Drop the anti, just defamation league, It’s cleaner.”
Meanwhile, an essay titled “Elon Musk’s Disturbing ‘Truth’” published in The Atlantic has lambasted Musk.
The watchdog publication Media Matters headlined its story on the topic “Elon Musk lights his tiki torch,” in reference to the infamous 2017 march by white supremacists at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.
Late on Thursday, X’s CEO Linda Yaccarino posted a message that did not name Musk but seemed to respond to the controversy.
Yaccarino insisted that “discrimination by everyone should STOP across the board.” She also said X had been combating anti-Semitism and discrimination, and that both had no place in the world.
X’s point of view has always been very clear that discrimination by everyone should STOP across the board — I think that’s something we can and should all agree on. When it comes to this platform — X has also been extremely clear about our efforts to combat antisemitism and…
— Linda Yaccarino (@lindayaX) November 16, 2023
“X’s point of view has always been very clear that discrimination by everyone should STOP across the board,” she tweeted on Thursday. “When it comes to this platform — X has also been extremely clear about our efforts to combat antisemitism and discrimination. There’s no place for it anywhere in the world.”
Her tweet was met with a deluge of replies pointing out that the platform’s owner — her boss — has done as much as anyone to amplify white nationalist ideology online.
Meanwhile, the Verge reported that Musk had also engaged with other posts supporting anti-Semitism and white pride.
Media Matters reported this week that tech companies such as Apple, Bravo, IBM, Oracle, and Xfinity had their ads placed near anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi content on X social network platform.
Later, IBM confirmed the firm had suspended advertising on X while it investigates the issue.
In response to the reports, Musk described Media Matters as “an evil organization.”
Musk acquired Twitter in 2022 for $44 billion and promised greater freedom of speech compared to when the platform implemented policies as draconian as Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.
The company came under pressure from the Israel lobby to reinstate rigorous censorship measures against criticism of the regime and its Zionist ideology. After the company refused to accept the diktats, the lobby launched a massive smear campaign against Musk.
