by Responding to accusations of anti-Semitism, Elon Musk visited Israel in recent months, hosting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a Tesla factory in California and repeatedly insisting that he has no hard feelings toward Jews.
On Monday he took his penance tour to a new level, declaring himself “aspirationally Jewish” after a visit to the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz in southern Poland, where he lit a candle in memory of the millions of Jews murdered in the Holocaust. .
Musk, owner of X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, sparked outrage (and an exodus of advertisers) in November when he endorsed an anti-Semitic post about The publication accused Jewish communities of fomenting “hatred against whites” and supporting the immigration of “hordes of minorities.”
The White House denounced Musk for “abhorrent promotion of anti-Semitic and racist hatred.”
He quickly apologized for his intervention, saying it “could literally be the worst, dumbest post I’ve ever made.” Since then he has been fighting to calm the protest and stop the drain of advertisers.
But his atonement has come in fits and starts. After apologizing for endorsing an anti-Semitic theory about Jews plotting to dilute the white population, he used an interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin of the New York Times to tell disgruntled advertisers to get lost in vulgar terms and accused them of attempting blackmail. him. He also threatened legal action against the Anti-Defamation League, a human rights group that has complained about rising anti-Semitism in X.
Now he has once again presented his less bellicose and more understanding side.
After a visit to Israel in late November, during which he toured a kibbutz where dozens of people were killed during the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7, Musk on Monday toured the site of what was once the Hamas concentration camp. Auschwitz with her 3-year-old son. He was accompanied by Rabbi Menachem Margolin, president and founder of the European Jewish Association.
Speaking later at a conference on anti-Semitism organized by the association in the nearby Polish city of Krakow, Musk said he had been “somewhat naïve” about the dangers posed by anti-Jewish sentiment because “in the circles I move in, I see no anti-Semitism.”
“Two-thirds of my friends are Jewish,” he said. “I am Jewish by association. “I am aspirationally Jewish.”
He added that it “blew me away” to see protesters at elite American universities show their support for Hamas by chanting slogans against Israel and its right to exist. “On elite campuses you are supposed to be enlightened and not sponsor hate,” he said.
At the same time, however, he repeated his long-standing position – as a self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist” – that censorship is not a good way to counter hate speech, noting that one of the first things he did After Hitler came to power in 1933, Germany had to “close the press” and silence critical voices.
Musk has faced a storm of criticism from the Anti-Defamation League and other Jewish groups in the United States who say he has allowed X to become a vessel for anti-Semitic hate since he bought the platform for $44 billion in October 2022.
TO study last year Conducted by two British groups found that the number of “plausibly anti-Semitic” posts increased by 105 percent in the months after Musk took control of the platform and relaxed safeguards against hate speech. “Our data paints a clear picture: Anti-Semitism spiked on Twitter” after Musk bought it and “has remained at a high level in the months since,” the groups said in a report.
Manuel Valls, former French prime minister who attended the Krakow conference, warned that social media has helped spread anti-Semitism disguised as criticism of Israel, particularly its military attack on Gaza, in which around 25,000 Palestinians have died. . Describing antisemitism as “hatred of Jews and hatred of Israel,” Valls said social media was now playing a particularly dangerous role. “This is where the main battle will take place,” he said.
A video presentation before Musk took the stage in Krakow to answer questions from right-wing commentator Ben Shapiro presented social media as a force for good that, had it existed in the 1930s, could have reduced the scale of the Holocaust when warning. the Jews of Europe to Hitler’s extermination camps and allow them to flee before it was too late.
Musk said he had seen movies of Auschwitz, which was liberated by the Soviet army in January 1945, “but it touches your heart much more when you see it in person. “I’m still absorbing the tragedy of what happened.”
