Maverick tech billionaire Elon Musk, the man behind Tesla and SpaceX and now owner of the social network X (formerly Twitter), has been reprimanded by the White House for his “abhorrent” endorsement of an anti-semitic hate post. In the same context, major American companies, such as Apple, have pulled out ads from X.
Musk, 52, on Wednesday endorsed a post on X that falsely claimed Jewish people were stoking hatred against white people, saying that the user who referenced the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory was speaking “the actual truth”. The anti-semitic conspiracy theory — it posits that Jews want to bring undocumented minority populations into Western countries to reduce White majorities in those nations — is often espoused by hate groups.
“It is unacceptable to repeat the hideous lie behind the most fatal act of anti-semitism in American history at any time, let alone one month after the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust,” said White House spokesperson Andrew Bates.
“As President Biden said weeks ago, memorialising the victims of the Pittsburgh Synagogue shooting, the October 7 ‘devastating atrocity has brought to the surface painful memories left by millennia of anti-semitism’ and under his presidency ‘we will continue to condemn anti-semitism at every turn,’” said the spokesperson.
October 7, 2023, is the date when the current Israel versus Hamas conflict began, as the Gaza-based militant group fired thousands of rockets into southern Israel and broke through the border fence to infiltrate Israeli communities, kill Israeli civilians at random, and take hundreds of Israelis hostage.
“We condemn this abhorrent promotion of anti-semitic and racist hate in the strongest terms, which runs against our core values as Americans. We all have a responsibility to bring people together against hate, and an obligation to speak out against anyone who attacks the dignity of their fellow Americans and compromises the safety of our communities,” said Bates.
In protest against Musk’s action, several top American companies have announced their decision to drop their advertisement on X, the social media platform. Prominent among them are Apple, Oracle, NBCUniversal’s Bravo network, and Comcast.
IBM said in a statement that the company “has zero tolerance for hate speech and discrimination, and we have immediately suspended all advertising on X while we investigate this entirely unacceptable situation”.