"Unacceptable." The White House on Friday accused Elon Musk of making a "despicable promotion of anti-Semitic and racist hate" in one of his posts on his social network X, formerly Twitter. The billionaire responded Wednesday to an account owner, who wrote that Jewish people encourage "hatred against white people," with a message: "You told the exact truth."

For the White House, this publication merely repeats a conspiracy theory popular among white nationalists, according to which Jews have a secret plan to promote illegal immigration to Western countries in order to undermine the white majority there.

Disney, Apple, Warner Bros. and IBM suspend ads on the platform

This conspiracy theory was echoed by the perpetrator of the attack on a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018, which killed 11 people. "It is unacceptable to repeat the heinous lie that led to the deadliest act of anti-Semitism in U.S. history," White House spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement, referring to the attack.

After this conspiracy theory, major American groups, including Disney, Apple, Warner Bros, IBM and NBC's parent company, Comcast, stopped publishing their ads on X, according to The Guardian.

It's starting to look pretty good: Apple, Disney, Lionsgate, IBM or (in another genre) the European Commission are suspending their ads on X/Twitter after Elon Musk's anti-Semitic tweet.https://t.co/QQ0QgZeUZW /

— Nicolas Berrod (@nicolasberrod) November 18, 2023

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'Noticeable rise' in misinformation

After his initial response, Musk went on Wednesday to claim that the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), an anti-Semitism group, "unfairly attacks a majority of the West, despite the fact that the majority of the West supports Jews and Israel." "It's because they cannot, according to their own principles, criticize minority groups that pose the main threat" to Jews, he added.

The owner of Tesla and SpaceX had already attacked the ADL in early September, claiming that the group was "responsible for most of the loss of revenue" from X. The ADL is one of the NGOs that has denounced a notable increase in misinformation and homophobic and racist insults on X, since moderation rules changed there with the arrival of Elon Musk.

  • Elon Musk
  • Twitter (X)
  • Anti-Semitism
  • Conspiracy theory
  • White House
  • USA
  • By the Web