Six words started it. On Wednesday afternoon, Elon Musk answered a post on X from a user who had accused Jews of hating white people and said he was indifferent to antisemitism. “You have said the actual truth,” Musk wrote.
By Friday, 6.7 million views had been recorded on that reply, according to the site’s own counter, and advertisers were heading for the exits.
The thread
Musk’s reply was the third post in an exchange. A self-described Jewish conservative from South Florida began it with a video condemning antisemitism online: “You got something you want to say? Why dont you say it to our faces.”
A second user answered with a multi-paragraph outline of what is sometimes called the “great replacement theory,” a conspiracy theory that former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, among others, has amplified. That person claimed Jewish communities were pushing “hatred against whites” and backed “flooding” the U.S. with “hordes of minorities.” He also said he was “deeply disinterested” in “western Jewish populations” now facing threats. Musk’s reply came after that.
He then went after the Anti-Defamation League, a group founded by Jews to oppose antisemitism. Musk has feuded with the ADL for months over its work to curb extremism on social media, which he says has cost X ad sales.
Advertisers pause
The Walt Disney Company is pausing its spending on X, according to a source with direct knowledge. The New York Times reported the decision first. Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery told NBC News through representatives late Friday that they were stopping too.
X chief executive Linda Yaccarino said on Thursday that antisemitism and discrimination are unacceptable on the platform. “There’s no place for it anywhere in the world — it’s ugly and wrong. Full stop,” she wrote. She did not directly address Musk’s tweets or IBM’s move. X also said in an email that a Media Matters investigation was flawed, in part because ads follow people as they browse and the researcher saw the same ads repeatedly.
A representative for X did not immediately respond to an interview request on Friday.
Condemnation, and Musk’s answer
Jonathan Greenblatt, the ADL’s CEO, wrote on Thursday that it was “indisputably dangerous to use one’s influence to validate and promote antisemitic theories.” On Friday the White House said Musk had promoted “antisemitic and racist hate” against “our core values as Americans.”
Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center said he was baffled. “I almost feel like saying to him, ‘Grow up,’” he said.
Matthew Hughey, a University of Connecticut sociology professor who has studied white supremacy, said the claims Musk echoed have been discredited repeatedly. Musk has 163 million followers on X, more than anyone else, and Hughey warned of more hate crimes as a result. A.J. Bauer, a University of Alabama journalism professor, called the exchange “old-timey antisemitism with new lingo.”
Musk did not back down. His Wednesday tweets stayed up. On Friday he wrote that “I am sticking to my principles!” and added that groups seeking to suppress free speech “should remember that karma is real.”
He did announce one policy that day. X would suspend accounts using the phrase “from the river to the sea,” which the ADL welcomed. Many Palestinians use the phrase, while many Jews say it means the eradication of Israel.
The ADL reports that antisemitic incidents in the U.S. rose 388% after the Hamas attacks last month, compared with the same period a year earlier.
Sources
Sources
- Disney, Apple among advertisers to pull business on X after Elon…
- More companies pause ads on X over Musk endorsing antisemitic post
