Elon Musk apologized for a post on his social media X platform in which he expressed support for an antisemitic conspiracy theory. However, he clarified that there is no connection between the post and his decision to visit Israel during its war against Hamas. "The visit to Israel isn’t related to this; it wasn’t an apology tour," Musk asserted.
More stories:
In an interview on Wednesday at The New York Times' DealBook Summit, Musk referred to the tweet and wrote in support of it: " You have said the actual truth" to a user who claimed that Jewish communities promote hatred against white populations. The post highlighted the Great Replacement conspiracy theory according to which Jews want to replace the white population in the United States with other minorities.
Musk's agreement with the antisemitic post, along with a report from the Media Matters organization claiming that prominent advertisers' ads were placed next to racist and antisemitic posts on the site, led many advertisers, including Disney, Apple, IBM and Warner Bros. Discovery, to halt their ad campaigns on X owned by Musk. Last week, X filed a lawsuit against Media Matters.
“I mean, look, I’m sorry for that … post,” said Musk. “It was foolish of me. Of the 30,000 it might be literally the worst and dumbest post I’ve ever done. And I’ve tried my best to clarify six ways from Sunday, but you know at least I think it’ll be obvious that in fact, far from being antisemitic, I’m in fact philosemitic.”
"In retrospect, I should not have replied to that particular post," Musk said. " Essentially, I handed a loaded gun to those who hate me, and arguably to those who are antismitic, and for that I am quite sorry, that was not my intention.” Musk didn’t bother to delete the antisemitic post, as he usually does with his problematic tweets.
Musk spoke harshly about the advertisers who abandoned X due to his support of the antisemitic tweet: "I don’t want them to advertise, if someone is going to blackmail me with advertising or money go f**k yourself. Go f**k yourself, is that clear? " Musk said.
"Hey, Bob, if you're in the audience, that's how I feel. Don't advertise,” Musk added, referring to Disney CEO Bob Iger. Iger, a Jewish businessman, addressed Musk's post earlier in the summit. "I have a lot of respect for Elon and for the things he has achieved," said Disney's CEO.
“And by him taking the position that he took in quite a public manner, we just felt that the association with that position and Elon Musk and X was not necessarily a positive one for us, and we decided we would pull our advertising."
"This advertiser boycott will kill the company," Musk said, "And the whole world will know that those advertisers killed the company.”
The interviewer responded that advertisers are expected to argue that he’s responsible for the company's failure, to which Musk replied: "Oh yeah? Tell it to Earth. Both of us will present our claims, and we'll see the results."
President Isaac Herzog, who met Musk during his visit to Israel this week, also participated remotely in the conference. "We had an open and candid conversation I found interesting, and I think it was beneficial for both of us," Herzog said in a video call, adding that he hopes Musk will act against antisemitism on X in the near future.