Musk’s Tirade Against the ADL Is an Antisemitic Dog Whistle
Musk says he’s against antisemitism on X (Twitter), but his tirade against the Anti-Defamation League is effectively fanning the flames of antisemitic sentiment on the platform.
By Chandra Steele
Elon Musk has capped a weekend of being accused of antisemitism and posting “ To be super clear, I’m pro free speech, but against antisemitism of any kind,” by saying that he is going to sue one of the most well-known Jewish organizations in the world, the Anti-Defamation League.
For those who are not familiar with it, the ADL is an organization that was formed to combat antisemitism and extremism of all kinds. While there is plenty that Jews currently disagree with the ADL about (specifically its policies regarding Israel and Palestine), these internecine conflicts are not at all what Musk and those who raged against the organization all weekend have in mind. Instead they are trafficking in the dangerous exchange of antisemitic tropes.
In follow-up posts regarding his planned lawsuit, Musk said that the ADL would be on the hook for “destroying half the value of the company, so roughly $22 billion” and “ ADL seems to be responsible for most of our revenue loss.”
Let me state upfront that I do not believe that Musk will actually follow through on this, based on his well-documented history of not following through on things ( Elon Musk Today has that covered), and I am not going to enumerate the ways that Musk has single-handedly decimated the value of X (probably the only thing he has done on his own).
As X nears collapse, something that Musk more than hinted at with his post “The sad truth is that there are no great ‘social networks’ right now,” he has decided to shift the blame from himself onto a familiar historical target, turning X into a Reichstag fire, a false-flag conflagration that led to the suspension of civil liberties in Germany and kicked off Nazi dictatorship.
Musk has seized upon the ADL, a familiar target of antisemites on X who know nothing about the organization except that its name serves as a socially acceptable shorthand for them to use for Jews. He even posted that the ADL itself is responsible for the rampant antisemitism on X. This echoes white nationalist propaganda that blames Jews for World War II, an idea that has been spreading on X in the form of clips from the antisemitic film Europa: The Last Battle right next to ads from Microsoft and Disney.
Throughout this weekend, Musk fanned the flames of the trending hashtag #BanTheADL, which was started by white nationalist and known antisemite Keith Woods and reposted by Musk before his weekend-long tirade.
Volent antisemitism poisoning society through social media is not theoretical. Musk has embraced Nazis on Twitter despite the real-world consequences online hate has. It is what fueled the massacre at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh earlier this year. This past weekend, Nazis took their online hate to the gates of the most magical place on earth where swastika-emblazoned flags waved in the wind during chants of “Jews will not replace us!” and “Jews get the rope!.”
Much has been made of Musk changing the name of Twitter to X, and though it is not what he had in mind when he did it, I have had something else in my mind as I wrote this, the movie American History X, which will have its 25th anniversary next month. At the time of its release, the American Nazism it portrayed was mostly underground and its message that antisemitic and racist beliefs will only destroy those who hold them seemed widespread. Now, the opposite is true. The only thing that still holds is the X in its name, which stands for how American history is now, not in the past. And how America is now is because of how America is on X.
X shareholders who have watched the company’s value dwindle are paying the literal cost of Musk’s massive mismanagement of the company. But every post about the ADL by the world’s richest man, who does not shy away from trying to wield influence, is an attack on Jews that puts them at risk of paying the ultimate price.
Originally published at https://www.pcmag.com.
