The White House on Friday strongly condemned Elon Musk for posting a “heinous” anti-Semitic lie on social media this week after the tech executive endorsed a post that falsely claimed Jews were fomenting hatred against whites.
“It is unacceptable to repeat the heinous lie behind the deadliest act of anti-Semitism in American history at any time, let alone a month after the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust,” White House spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement posted on Musk’s social media platform, X. on Friday.
The statement continued: “We condemn in the strongest terms this heinous promotion of anti-Semitic and racist hatred, which goes against our core values as Americans. We all have a responsibility to rally against hate and an obligation to speak out against anyone who attacks the dignity of their fellow Americans and threatens the safety of our communities. ”
On Wednesday, Musk responded with the “absolute truth” to a tweet that falsely claimed that Jewish communities promote “hate against white people.”
As Bates himself noted, the same false conspiracy theory motivated the gunman who opened fire at a synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018, killing 11 people.
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Musk’s tweet also landed him in trouble with advertisers, with IBM suspending its ads on Xu after the company’s corporate ads appeared next to pro-Nazi content.
Since the October 7 attack by Hamas in southern Israel, in which terrorists killed hundreds of civilians and soldiers and took about 240 people hostage, anti-Semitism has been on the rise.
Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, the United States’ special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism, said in a statement last month that she was “deeply concerned by the dramatic increase in anti-Semitic incidents” in places in Europe, Latin America, Australia, South Africa, North America, Russia and elsewhere.
She added that the Hamas terrorist attack at the beginning of the month marked “the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust.”
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Musk hasn’t shied away from talking about politics in recent years, especially after he bought Twitter, which he later renamed X.
In November 2022, shortly after the takeover of the social network was completed, Musk urged followers to vote Republican in the midterm elections.
Musk’s tweet — which was pinned to the top of his Twitter profile after it was published — actually endorsed a range of candidates and came months after the Tesla founder told a tech conference that he wanted to make the social media platform “balanced.”
Musk also drew criticism for tweeting bizarre and false conspiracy theories after last year’s attack on then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi.
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Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education