Elon Musk on Monday visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau website of a former Nazi demise camp, a transfer that comes after the billionaire proprietor of X confronted a backlash for calling an antisemitic put up on the social platform ”the precise fact.”
Musk’s November endorsement of the antisemitic put up prompted some high advertisers, together with Apple, Comcast, Disney, IBM and Warner Bros., to tug their advertising and marketing {dollars} from the platform. Musk later mentioned the choice of those firms to chop spending on X, previously referred to as Twitter, might ”kill the corporate.”
Musk additionally got here underneath fireplace from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), an advocacy group that works to fight hate in opposition to Jewish individuals, with the group’s CEO Jonathan Greenblatt writing on X that it’s ”harmful to make use of one’s affect to validate and promote antisemitic theories.”
On Monday, Musk was photographed visiting the Birkenau website along with Day by day Wire podcaster Ben Shapiro, with each set to attend a convention on antisemitism this week. Birkenau is a village close to Oswiecim, in southern Poland, fenced off with barbed wire, the place picket barracks for the prisoners and the ruins of a gasoline chamber endure as proof of Nazi crimes, and the place a monument to the victims stands. Worldwide ceremonies are held there annually.
Musk additionally reposted a photograph of himself and Shapiro touring the positioning, the place greater than 1.1 million individuals have been murdered by the Nazis and their henchmen throughout World Battle II. Most who have been killed have been Jews, however the victims additionally included Poles, Roma, Soviet prisoners of struggle, and others. In all, about 6 million European Jews died throughout the Holocaust. When the Soviets liberated the camp, they discovered about 7,000 survivors.
In an announcement emailed to CBS MoneyWatch, the ADL mentioned it hoped the go to would lead to modifications at X. An ADL spokesperosn wrote, ”As Musk learns from his journey, we hope he and the management staff at X will mirror on the methods through which antisemitism has been allowed to unfold on their platform, as our analysis has proven, and really redouble their efforts when it comes to each coverage and enforcement to cease its continued proliferation.”
The ADL added, ”Anybody who has the chance to bear witness to the atrocities that happened in Auschwitz-Birkenau ought to go. Auschwitz serves as the last word reminder of what can occur when a society or its leaders are consumed with antisemitism.”
Antisemitism convention
Musk’s go to on the most infamous website of the horrors of the Holocaust got here earlier than a scheduled look later Monday at a convention on antisemitism organized by the European Jewish Affiliation within the close by Polish metropolis of Krakow.
Musk had been anticipated to make the go to on Tuesday and participate in a memorial service, along with political figures attending the EJA convention in Krakow, however confirmed up on the Nazi demise camp on Monday as a substitute.
”Resulting from schedule considerations, earlier than Elon Musk’s arrival to the European Jewish Affiliation convention, he took half in a non-public go to to Auschwitz-Birkenau with EJA Chairman Rabbi Menachem Margolin, Ben Shapiro and Holocaust survivor Gidon Lev. Musk laid a wreath on the wall of demise and took half in a brief memorial ceremony and repair by the Birkenau memorial,” the EJA mentioned in an e-mail.
Antisemitic X put up
The backlash over Musk’s views got here after he responded to an X person’s put up that claimed Jews ”have been pushing the precise type of dialectical hatred in opposition to whites that they declare to need individuals to cease utilizing in opposition to them.”
Musk responded, ”You will have mentioned the precise fact” whereas additionally criticizing the ADL, writing, ”the ADL unjustly assaults nearly all of the West, regardless of nearly all of the West supporting the Jewish individuals and Israel. It is because they can not, by their very own tenets, criticize the minority teams who’re their major risk.”
He later apologized for the remark, calling it the ”dumbest” put up he is ever performed.
—With reporting by the Related Press.