Elon Musk’s Twitter is a different place than it was a year ago. What was once a website where journalists networked and talked to sources is now a place where conspiracy theories and the alt right abound — most of them provably wrong, and many of them antisemitic. Now, those theories are being endorsed by Musk himself.
Musk responded to a tweet earlier this week, in which a paid Twitter user talked about “Jewish … hatred against whites” and “hordes of minorities that support flooding their country.” The Tesla CEO managed to cut 14 words down to six with his response: “You have said the actual truth.”
Musk followed that tweet with one criticizing the Anti-Defamation League, the civil rights group that Twitter is suing for its claims about rises in hate speech over the past few months. Louder, prouder antisemites celebrated Musk’s words, according to NBC News:
Accounts with histories of espousing anti-Jewish views celebrated Musk’s tweet as welcome news and as confirmation that he agrees with them “on the JQ,” short for “Jewish question,” a term used by antisemites for decades.
“This is old-timey antisemitism with new lingo,” said A.J. Bauer, an assistant professor of journalism who studies right-wing movements and media at the University of Alabama.
Responses from regular, normal human beings, however, have been decidedly less enthusiastic. Bloomberg looked into the financial fallout of Musk’s mask-off moment, and found it to be considerable — Tesla investors are appalled, and Twitter advertisers are taking their ad dollars elsewhere:
Kristin Hull, founder and chief executive officer of Nia Impact Capital, said she was “appalled” by Musk’s new posts. The social-impact fund owned about $282,200 of Tesla stock as of midyear and has waged pressured campaigns against the company for years, including via shareholder resolutions.
“The impact of erratic, racist, and antisemitic speech from a CEO directly affects Tesla’s brand and bottom line in significant ways,” Hull wrote in an email Thursday. She said an appropriate response to Musk’s actions may include censure by Tesla’s board, demotion, re-assignment, suspension or removal.
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The European Commission advised staff to stop advertising on X due to “an alarming increase in disinformation and hate speech,” it said in a statement on Friday, which didn’t specifically cite Musk’s posts. The move was initially reported by Politico.
Media Matters released a report Thursday showing ads for IBM, Apple Inc., Oracle Corp., Comcast Corp.’s Xfinity brand, and the Bravo television network, which is owned by Comcast’s NBCUniversal, running on X next to pro-Nazi posts.
“IBM has zero tolerance for hate speech and discrimination and we have immediately suspended all advertising on X while we investigate this entirely unacceptable situation,” a company spokesperson said.
Musk’s latest replies on Twitter seem to focus on Media Matters’ exposé that led IBM to pull its ad dollars. He’s called the outlet “an evil organization,” and repeatedly responded to claims that all media — seemingly every outlet that disagrees with his worldview — is corrupt and filled with liars.
The truth is that Musk’s mask of humanity has long been slipping. He’s come for LGBTQ people with concerning regularity, and has been particularly apt to attack trans people wherever possible — including less than 24 hours ago. He’s referred to the acceptance of refugees as “European suicide,” and signaled support for the antisemitic “BanTheADL” movement. White supremacists love him, because they see in him what everyone else seemingly refuses to understand.