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Pushing again in opposition to accusations of antisemitism, Elon Musk has in latest months visited Israel, hosted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a Tesla manufacturing facility in California and repeatedly insisted he bears no animus towards Jews.
On Monday, he took his penitence tour to a brand new degree, declaring himself “aspirationally Jewish” after a go to to the previous Nazi demise camp Auschwitz in southern Poland, the place he lit a candle in reminiscence of the tens of millions of Jews murdered within the Holocaust.
Mr. Musk, the proprietor of X, the social media platform previously often known as Twitter, stirred outrage — and an exodus of advertisers — in November when he endorsed an antisemitic submit on X as “the precise reality.” The submit accused Jewish communities of pushing “hatred in opposition to whites” and supporting the immigration of “hordes of minorities.”
The White Home denounced Mr. Musk for “abhorrent promotion of antisemitic and racist hate.”
He rapidly apologized for his intervention, saying “it is perhaps actually the worst and dumbest submit I’ve ever completed.” He has been scrambling since to calm the outcry and halt the flight of advertisers.
However his atonement has are available suits and begins. After apologizing for giving a thumbs as much as an antisemitic idea about Jews conspiring to dilute the white inhabitants, he used an interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin of The New York Occasions to inform sad advertisers to get misplaced in vulgar phrases and accused them of attempting to blackmail him. He additionally threatened to take authorized motion in opposition to the Anti-Defamation League, a rights group that has complained concerning the rise in antisemitism on X.
He’s now again to presenting his much less pugnacious, extra understanding facet.
After a go to to Israel in late November, throughout which he toured a kibbutz the place dozens of individuals have been killed through the Hamas terrorist assault on Oct. 7, Mr. Musk on Monday toured the positioning of what as soon as was the Auschwitz focus camp along with his 3-year-old son. He was escorted by Rabbi Menachem Margolin, the chairman and founding father of the European Jewish Affiliation.
Talking later at a convention on antisemitism organized by the affiliation within the close by Polish metropolis of Krakow, Mr. Musk mentioned he had been “considerably naïve” concerning the risks posed by anti-Jewish sentiment as a result of “within the circles I transfer in, I see no antisemitism.”
“Two-thirds of my associates are Jewish,” he mentioned. “I’m Jewish by affiliation. I’m aspirationally Jewish.”
He added that “it blew my thoughts” to see protesters at elite U.S. schools displaying help for Hamas by chanting slogans in opposition to Israel and its proper to exist. “At elite campuses you’re speculated to be enlightened, not sponsoring hate,” he mentioned.
On the identical time, nevertheless, he repeated his longstanding place — as a self-declared “free speech absolutist” — that censorship isn’t a great way to counter hate speech, noting that one of many first issues Hitler did after coming to energy in Germany in 1933 was to “shut down the press” and silence essential voices.
Mr. Musk has confronted a storm of criticism from the Anti-Defamation League and different Jewish teams in the USA that say he has allowed X to change into a vessel for antisemitic hatred since he bought the platform for $44 billion in October 2022.
A examine final 12 months by two British teams discovered that the variety of “plausibly antisemitic” posts rose by 105 p.c within the months after Mr. Musk took management of the platform and relaxed safeguards in opposition to hate speech. “Our knowledge presents a transparent image: antisemitism spiked on Twitter” after Mr. Musk purchased it and “has stayed at an elevated degree within the months thereafter,” the teams mentioned in a report.
Emmanuel Vals, a former French prime minister who attended the Krakow convention, warned that social media has helped unfold antisemitism beneath the guise of criticism of Israel, significantly its army assault on Gaza, wherein round 25,000 Palestinians have been killed. Describing antisemitism as each “hatred of Jews and hatred of Israel,” Mr. Vals mentioned social media was now enjoying a very harmful function. “It’s right here that the principle battle will happen,” he mentioned.
A video presentation earlier than Mr. Musk took the stage in Krakow to reply questions from the right-wing commentator Ben Shapiro offered social media as a drive for good that, had it existed within the Nineteen Thirties, might have lowered the size of the Holocaust by alerting Europe’s Jews to Hitler’s demise camps and permitting them to flee earlier than it was too late.
Mr. Musk mentioned he had seen movie from Auschwitz, which was liberated by the Soviet Military in January 1945, “but it surely hits you far more within the coronary heart while you see it in particular person. I’m nonetheless absorbing the tragedy of what occurred.”
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