Billionaire Elon Musk has sharply criticised advertisers who have abandoned his social media platform X over anti-Semitic content.
In an interview on Wednesday, he told them to “Go f— yourselves.” His scolding followed a moment of contrition in an interview with the New York Times DealBook Summit, when he first said “sorry” for a tweet agreeing with an anti-Jewish post on X’s website on November 15. Later he said:
I don’t want them to advertise. If someone is going to blackmail me with advertising or money go f—yourself.
Musk was hit with an avalanche of criticism after he agreed with a user who falsely claimed that Jews incite hatred against white people, saying that the user who referred to the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory was telling the “the actual truth.”
Musk said on Wednesday that he had literally “handed a loaded gun” to detractors, calling his post perhaps the most unfortunate in the history of his posts, which included many “foolish” ones.
The Tesla CEO brushed off accusations of anti-Semitism, and said advertisers who left X, formerly Twitter, shouldn’t think they have the right to blackmail him by repeatedly saying “f- you”. At one point, he added the words “Hey Bob,” in an apparent reference to Robert Iger, the CEO of Walt Disney, which has withdrawn advertising on X. He warned that advertisers could mean the demise of X. He noted:
What this advertising boycott is going to do is it’s going to kill the company. The whole world will know those advertisers killed company, and we will document it in great detail.
According to the Great Replacement Theory, Jews and leftists are engineering the ethnic and cultural replacement of the white population with non-white immigrants, which will lead to “white genocide.”
The White House issued a condemnation of Musk’s post for what it called “disgusting anti-Semitic and racist hate propaganda.” After the post was published, major US companies including Walt Disney, Warner Bros Discovery and NBCUniversal’s parent company Comcast stopped advertising on X’s website.
Liberal group Media Matters has issued a report claiming it found adverts next to posts supporting Nazism, triggering advertisers to leave. Last week, Company X filed a lawsuit against Media Matters for defamation.
Following the conviction, Musk travelled to Israel and toured the site of the Hamas attack on the country on 7 October. On Monday, he hosted a live broadcast on X’s website and spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He said the trip had been planned well in advance of his announcement and was “independent” of the issue. In Israel, Musk said he was against anti-Semitism and anything that “promotes hatred and conflict” and said X would not promote hate speech. Netanyahu told Musk during the conversation:
The fact that you came here speaks volumes of your commitment to try to secure a better future.
They previously met at Tesla’s headquarters in California in September to discuss the merits and dangers of advanced artificial intelligence. During the conversation, which took place shortly after Musk’s attacks on the Anti-Defamation League, Netanyahu urged the billionaire to strike a balance between protecting free speech on the Internet and combating hate speech.
Musk gave a wide-ranging interview on Wednesday, discussing topics such as free speech, the environment and US presidential politics. Musk said he would not vote to re-elect President Joe Biden, but did not say he would vote for his likely rival Donald Trump.
