Elon Musk boosts antisemitic tweet,
claims ADL and other groups push
‘anti-white’ messaging

Thu, Nov 16 2023

Lora Kolodny

Tesla, SpaceX, and X Corp. leader
Elon Musk issued a spate of
bigoted tweets Wednesday
that spurred a critical backlash online.

First, Musk drew attention to
and agreed with an antisemitic
conspiracy theory, and then
directly accused “Jewish communities,”
the nonprofit Anti-Defamation
League, and minorities of what
he called “anti-white” messaging
and views, without giving
examples to support his accusations.

Musk — who is the richest person
in the world, with a net worth
of around $225 billion, according
to Bloomberg — leads several
companies that collectively
employ around 150,000 people
worldwide, including SpaceX,
Tesla, The Boring Co., Neuralink,
X Corp., and his latest venture,
artificial intelligence startup xAI.

Musk, who has never reserved
his social media posts for business
matters alone, drew attention to a
tweet that said Jewish people
“have been pushing the exact
kind of dialectical hatred against
whites that they claim to want
people to stop using against them.”

Musk replied to that tweet in
emphatic agreement, “You have
said the actual truth.”

“This exchange would have
languished in obscurity had Musk
not replied to this bigoted bromide,”
wrote Yair Rosenberg in The Atlantic.

In response to Musk’s tweet,
Anti-Defamation League CEO
Jonathan Greenblatt wrote on X,
formerly known as Twitter,
“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.”

Among other things, the Jewish-
led nonprofit works to fight
antisemitic incidents, racist
discrimination and hate crimes
in the U.S.

After Musk began to face a
backlash for endorsing the
antisemitic tweet, he took aim
more specifically at the ADL.

He wrote, without providing
any evidence for these claims,
“The ADL 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 is not right and needs to stop.”

CNBC reached out to Musk and
X Corp. for comments and to
clarify which “minority groups”
Musk sees as a “primary threat”
to the Jewish people and Israel,
but received no comment except
an apparent auto-response
message that said, “Busy now,
please check back later.”

In subsequent tweets, after a
follower told Musk he was not
being fair or truthful, the billionaire
replied, “You right that this does
not extend to all Jewish communities,
but it is also not just limited to
ADL.” He added, “And, at the risk
of being repetitive, 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. I’m sick of it. Stop now.”

Musk has posted incendiary
tweets for a long time, and his
companies, especially Tesla,
have faced lawsuits over alleged
civil and workers’ rights violations.
The Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission sued Tesla over
alleged racist discrimination
and harassment of Black workers
this year.

Musk previously threatened to
sue the ADL, alleging that they
tried to “kill” his social network’s
business. He has blamed the
ADL, rather than his own business
decisions, for a 60% drop in
revenue at X and said he had
“no choice” but to file a
defamation lawsuit against
the group. However, no lawsuit
has yet materialized.

The ADL declined to offer
further comment Thursday morning.

Hate crimes expert Brian Levin,
who is a professor emeritus at
California State University,
San Bernardino, told CNBC
that law enforcement is already
tracking generational spikes
in anti-Jewish hate crime in
North America and elsewhere.
He said, “Elon Musk piles on
by amplifying neo-Nazi type
Jew hatred about them being
anti-white by invoking
immigration, just as the
convicted Tree of Life
massacre killer did.” As a
result, antisemitic incidents
and crimes could spike further.

“Notorious antisemites are
celebrating what they see as
Musk’s complete conversion
to blatant expressions of
Jew hatred. When we saw
similar rants from Ye last
October, anti-Jewish hate
crime spiked across the
country,” Levin said.

Meredith Benton at Whistle
Stop Capital told CNBC the
move could affect Musk’s
business interests.

“For Mr. Musk to amplify
this type of rhetoric on
Twitter, indicates his
disinterest in turning that
platform into a cash-positive
business; I expect many
corporate advertisers who
had decided to stay on
Twitter are now looking
at their last straw,” Benton said.

“It appears, unfortunately,
that the current leadership
may be the source, not the
solution, to the harassment
and discrimination problems
we have seen at Tesla’s factories,”
Benton said. “Tesla investors
(a majority in 2022, if you
exclude Elon’s shares) have
already made clear that they
hold deep concerns over the
allegations of racism and
retaliation at Tesla factories
alongside the company’s continued
use of concealment clauses.”

“This will be a very interesting
proxy season; there is no sideline
for investors to sit on where a
CEO decides to be this polarizing,”
Benton said.

CNBC

Published: November 16, 2023