Agreeing with an antisemitic post on his social media platform X, Elon Musk endorsed the claim that Jewish communities push “hatred against Whites.”
An X post Wednesday afternoon said: “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.” The post also referenced “hordes of minorities” flooding Western countries, a popular antisemitic conspiracy theory.
In response, Musk said: “You have said the actual truth.”
The antisemitic conspiracy theory that Jews want to bring undocumented minority populations into Western countries to reduce White majorities in those nations has been espoused by online hate groups and echoed by Robert Bowers, the convicted killer of 11 worshipers at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018. It was the deadliest attack against Jews in American history.
Musk, in subsequent posts, said he does not believe hatred of White people extends “to all Jewish communities.” But he said the Anti-Defamation League “unjustly attacks the majority of the West, despite the majority of the West supporting the Jewish people and Israel. This is because they cannot, by their own tenets, criticize the minority groups who are their primary threat.”
It’s unclear what Musk was referring to. Antisemitic incidents in the United States reached a record high in 2022, according to the ADL. Although the ADL said the increase in antisemitism isn’t because of a single group, the organization noted that antisemitic activity coordinated by White supremacist groups doubled last year, according to a March audit.
Yet Musk suggested that the ADL promotes racism against White people.
“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,” he said. “I’m sick of it. Stop now,” Musk said of the ADL.
X did not respond to requests for comment.
In a post on X Thursday, ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt accused Musk of pushing antisemitism.
“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,” he wrote.”
The ADL has been critical of X, particularly since Musk took control of the platform over a year ago. The ADL, the Center for Countering Digital Hate and similar organizations have reported surging hate speech on X over the past year – findings that Musk has criticized or denied.
Musk in September threatened to sue the ADL for defamation, claiming that the organization’s reports have hurt advertising sales on X. In a statement last month, the ADL said: “Any allegation that ADL has somehow orchestrated a boycott of X or caused billions of dollars of losses to the company or is ‘pulling the strings’ for other advertisers is false.”
Greenblatt said Musk’s statements about the group have amplified a campaign of antisemitic hate against the organization.
In early October, after pausing its advertising campaign on X, the ADL said it would resume its ads on the platform “to bring our important message on fighting hate to X and its users.”
The White House on Friday fired back at Musk’s post.
“It is unacceptable to repeat the hideous lie behind the most fatal act of Antisemitism in American history at any time, let alone one month after the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a statement to CNN. “We condemn this abhorrent promotion of Antisemitic and racist hate in the strongest terms, which runs against our core values as Americans.”
