Elon Musk expresses support for anti-Semitic message on

Elon Musk, the world’s richest person and owner of X, the social network formerly known as Twitter, has called an anti-Semitic post on the platform the “real truth.”

The comment stemmed from a post by an

Musk responded, “You told the real truth” while also criticizing the Anti-Defamation League, an advocacy group that fights hatred against Jewish people. “The ADL unfairly attacks the majority of the West, even though the majority of the West supports the Jewish people and Israel. This is because they cannot, by their own principles, criticize minority groups who are their main threat,” Musk tweeted.

This comment comes in a context of increased tensions due to the Israel-Hamas War, which has led to conflicts on American college campuses over alleged anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim incidents. Meanwhile, since Hamas militants launched a surprise assault on Israel in October and the Israeli attacks in Gaza, there was a significant increase in anti-Semitic incidents in the United States, according to data published by the ADL.

The sentiment of the original post echoes some anti-Semitic conspiracy theories claiming that Jews want to integrate minorities to weaken white majorities. This belief was adopted by convicted murderer Robert Bowerswho went on a rampage against Jewish people online before killing 11 people Synagogue of the Tree of Life in Pittsburgh in 2018.

In response to Musk’s comment, ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt wrote on to validate and promote anti-Semitic theories. »

Musk has already targeted the ADL, threatening in September to sue the group for allegedly accusing him and X of anti-Semitism, claiming the ADL’s actions led advertisers to abandon the social network. In the year since Musk bought the social media company, he transformed the service by firing its CEO and many of its employees, including those working on content moderation. Critics say this has led to a surge in hate speech against X.

Musk, whose personal fortune Forbes puts $243 billion, has used X as his personal megaphone, amplifying his own opinions to his 163 million followers on everything from his companies’ products to issues of gender and race. His comments have been criticized as hurtful to certain groups, such as transgender people, while critics say he has allowed hate speech to flourish on X.

Advertisers avoided X in part because they feared their content would resemble hate speech. The service saw a 30% drop in the number of people actively tweeting, according to the Washington Post. reported last month.

But Musk has far more at risk than losing advertisers and users, given that he bought Twitter for $44 billion in a deal that included $12.5 billion in loans with banks including Morgan Stanley and Bank of America. X’s value has fallen to about $19 billion, a drop of about 55% from Musk’s original purchase price, according to the New York Times. reported.

This crisis means that the value of banks’ investments has declined significantly and could make it more difficult for them to recover their loans.