Tech billionaire Elon Musk accused the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) of “trying to kill” X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, and threatened a lawsuit against the group, whose stated purpose is to fight antisemitism and hate speech.
In a series of X posts Monday, Musk — the owner of the social media platform — accused the hate-speech watchdog group of “falsely accusing” him of being antisemitic, resulting in what he claimed was a decline in ad sales.
“Since the acquisition, The @ADL has been trying to kill this platform by falsely accusing it & me of being anti-Semitic,” Musk said in a post, adding, “Our US advertising revenue is still down 60%, primarily due to pressure on advertisers by @ADL (that’s what advertisers tell us), so they almost succeeded in killing X/Twitter!”
“To be super clear, I’m pro free speech, but against anti-Semitism of any kind,” he wrote in a separate post.
Several hours later, he took to X again to claim the company would file a defamation suit against the ADL.
“To clear our platform’s name on the matter of anti-Semitism, it looks like we have no choice but to file a defamation lawsuit against the Anti-Defamation League … oh the irony!” Musk wrote.
The X owner said the lawsuit would accuse the ADL of “destroying half the value of the company,” which he valued at $22 billion.
“Based on what we’ve heard from advertisers, ADL seems to be responsible for most of our revenue loss,” Musk claimed. “Giving them maximum benefit of the doubt, I don’t see any scenario where they’re responsible for less than 10% of the value destruction, so ~$4 billion.”
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Musk accuses ADL of "trying to kill" X as he threatens lawsuit against the group https://t.co/UsjtDUnnms pic.twitter.com/mvS2ZIZOP2
— The Hill (@thehill) September 5, 2023
I love the implication that the erratic management, mass layoffs, incoherent moderation, destruction of verification, decimated engineering staff, serial unbanning of racists, and crumbling infrastructure had nothing to do with twitter losing half its value. Nope, just Jews. pic.twitter.com/zW4fFAQASb
— Mike Rothschild (no relation) (@rothschildmd) September 5, 2023
The owner of this website responds to an antisemite by claiming that antisemitism here is caused by Jews. pic.twitter.com/74GdlnCnf4
— Eric Columbus (@EricColumbus) September 4, 2023
"The Jews bring it on themselves" is one of the oldest antisemitic canards out there. Msk isn't being edgy here, he's relying on a trope that's older than dirt and pretending he just figured it out. pic.twitter.com/DzjwN4kazL
— Mike Rothschild (no relation) (@rothschildmd) September 4, 2023
Hey, Elon, blaming the Jews for your problems is actually why people are calling you antisemitic. Also because you support and amplify antisemites, repeat antisemitic lies and tropes and thus appear in every way to be antisemitic. https://t.co/WGifR26Gz6
— David Rothkopf (@djrothkopf) September 4, 2023
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