White House criticises Elon Musk over ‘hideous’ antisemitic lie

The White House has accused Elon Musk of repeating a “hideous lie” about Jewish folks, after the X proprietor appeared to reply approvingly to an antisemitic submit on the platform.

On Wednesday, Mr Musk replied a submit sharing an antisemitic conspiracy concept, calling it “actual truth”.

Mr Musk has denied that the submit was antisemitic.

But a White House spokesman mentioned his endorsement of the submit, which drew anger on-line, was “unacceptable”.

“We condemn this abhorrent promotion of antisemitic and racist hate in the strongest terms,” mentioned White House spokesperson Andrew Bates.

He famous that the submit Mr Musk was responding to referred to a conspiracy concept that motivated the person who killed 11 folks at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018.

“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,” Mr Bates mentioned, referring to the 7 October Hamas assault in opposition to Israel.

X Chief Executive Linda Yaccarino wrote in an earlier tweet that the corporate has been “extremely clear about our efforts to combat antisemitism and discrimination. There’s no place for it anywhere in the world – it’s ugly and wrong”.

On Wednesday, Mr Musk responded together with his “truth” remark to a submit that accused Jewish communities of pushing “hatred against whites” and which included anti-immigrant sentiments.

It gave the impression to be an endorsement of a racist and antisemitic conspiracy concept often called “white genocide,” which argues that Jewish folks systematically plot to encourage immigration of “non-white” folks to Western nations with a view to “eliminate” the white race.

The concept motivated a mass assassin who entered the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018 and shot useless 11 worshippers. Robert Bowers was sentenced to dying earlier this 12 months.

Mr Musk denies he’s antisemitic and later mentioned his feedback referred to not all Jewish folks however to teams just like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and different unspecified “Jewish communities”.

ADL Chief Executive Jonathan Greenblatt posted: “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.”

The controversy over antisemitism comes as some organisations have stopped shopping for advertisements on X, previously often called Twitter, citing extremist content material on the social community.

IBM stopped its advert spending after a report from a left-wing media watchdog mentioned its content material was positioned subsequent to posts praising Adolf Hitler and Nazism.

X advised the BBC on Thursday that advertisements are usually not intentionally positioned subsequent to extremist content material, that the Nazi-promoting accounts is not going to earn cash from promoting and that particular posts will probably be labelled “sensitive media”.

Separately, the European Commission has requested its departments to cease shopping for advertisements on X due to issues over misinformation in relation to the Israel-Hamas struggle, in line with a report by Politico.

Mr Musk has on a number of events repeated conspiracy theories and has additionally criticised social media watchdogs – together with the ADL and different teams – for criticising his content material moderation modifications at X.

The firm says that it has stronger model security controls than different social networks and that hate speech and extremism has fallen on the platform regardless of massive cuts to the corporate’s security staff. Several outdoors teams disagree with the corporate’s evaluation and say that extremism and hate speech have elevated beneath Mr Musk’s management.

Earlier this 12 months Mr Musk threatened to sue the ADL, claiming it was “trying to kill this platform by falsely accusing it & me of being anti-Semitic”. He blames strain teams, relatively than misinformation and extremist posts, for a pointy drop in promoting income since his takeover.

While he has not carried via together with his menace in opposition to the ADL, the corporate has sued one other analysis and marketing campaign group, the Center for Countering Digital Hate.

On Thursday, CCDH filed a movement to dismiss the lawsuit beneath California’s anti-SLAPP – “Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation” – regulation, calling the X go well with “an attempt to censor, intimidate, and silence”.