On Monday, Elon Musk issued a series of statements in which he has blamed secret manipulation by a Jewish organization for the destruction of the X platform, which was once called Twitter. Saying the Anti-Defamation League was the “primary” reason for falling ad revenue at X, Musk first threatened, then later seemed to promise to sue for damages.
That’s right. After months in which Musk has supported racist rants; encouraged hate speech; elevated literal Nazi propaganda; fired every Twitter employee in Brazil on suspicion of being too liberal; fired the entire company press office and the entire company communications department; decimated the team responsible for content moderation; terrified advertisers with chaos, irresponsibility, and perpetuating racism; and thrown away global brand recognition by renaming the whole platform to indulge a personal whim, Musk has put his finger on the real issue.
It’s the Jews.
Two days before launching into his extended ADL related rant, Musk responded to a post suggesting that he might run a poll to ban the ADL from Twitter.
The person behind that post is a Dutch commentator who describes herself as the “Shieldmaiden of the far right” and whose other posts focus on how “the once great country of Germany” has turned into “Zombieland” because of immigration, how the “wicked globalists” are threatening our freedom, how the COVID-19 pandemic is fake, and how vaccines are “gene therapy.” Also, she gives beauty tips.
Which of these things caused Musk to be following this person’s account isn’t clear, but it was probably not the beauty tips.
Apparently Musk spent the next 48 hours warmed by neo-Nazi support for banning the ADL. He decided Monday would be an excellent day to blame them for everything that has gone wrong in his $44 billion money pit since he walked through the door.
Musk started his prolonged attack on Monday with a statement that he was “against anti-Semitism of any kind.” Then he moved immediately to attacks in which he directly blamed the ADL for the destruction he has brought on the platform, beginning with this basic, unsupported, and unsupportable claim.
If there’s anything that is certain to bring advertisers flocking back to Twitter, it’s threatening to involve every current and former advertiser on the platform in a lawsuit in which there would be discovery of all their correspondence. Put this right alongside the time that Musk threatened “a thermonuclear name and shame” of advertisers who had pulled back from the platform as examples of his excellent outreach.
The rant went on. And on. And if Musk set out to check every single box on the list of how to be antisemitic while claiming not to be antisemitic, he did an excellent job.
Prodded by his supporters, Musk first hinted and then insisted that he will sue the ADL for “defamation,” blaming the organization for at least $4 billion in damages, and saying that should he win, “they will have to remove the anti” from the name of the ADL.
While the ADL may be the focus of this rant, they certainly aren’t the only anti-hate group being targeted by Musk. Last week, Variety reported that X had filed a lawsuit against the Center for Countering Digital Hate for scraping data from the platform and for “targeting people on all platforms who speak about issues the CCDH doesn’t agree with.” In other words, the CCDH tries to stop hate speech.
Among other things, the CCDH combats antisemitism, anti-vaxx disinformation, and false statements about the climate crisis. Their most recent report on X deals with how the platform elevates anti-LGBTQ+ content and how Musk has personally been involved in promoting this material.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines scapegoat as “a person who is blamed for the wrongdoings, mistakes, or faults of others, especially for reasons of expediency.”
If they need to list a classic example of the form, this one would be an extremely good fit.
While blaming the ADL for his failings, Musk is yet to name an actual company which told him they were staying away from X due to the ADL. For someone who champions free speech, he certainly seems reluctant to speak freely about these supposed conversations.
It’s almost as if they never happened, and he’s just going along with his Nazi friends.
Sign the petition: Denounce Elon Musk’s tyrannical takeover of Twitter.
Trump’s continuing legal problems, the car crash of a Republican debate, and the polling numbers defy the traditional media’s narrative that the Republican Party is even above water with voters.
