Elon Musk’s credentials as a “free speech absolutist” came into question over the weekend after the X owner elevated an antisemitic campaign to ban the Anti-Defamation League from his social media site.
“Perhaps we should run a poll on this?” Musk tweeted on Saturday, responding to a notorious extremist pundit, who noted that #BanTheADL was trending on the site formerly known as Twitter.
The Tesla CEO made the eyebrow-raising tweet after he also liked a post from hard-right YouTube influencer Keith Woods, who said the ADL is “financially blackmailing social media companies into removing free speech on their platform.”
Musk replied to the tweet from Woods, saying that the “ADL has tried very hard to strangle X/Twitter.”
On Monday, Musk tried to calm the uproar over his tweet.
“To be super clear, I’m pro free speech, but against antisemitism of any kind” Musk said.
The campaign to ban the ADL came a day after a meeting last Wednesday between X’s CEO Linda Yaccarino and ADL’s President Jonathan Greeblatt over the social media site’s moderation of hate speech.
Greelblatt tweeted that he had a “very frank + productive conversation” with Yaccarino about “where X “needs to go to address hate effectively on the platform.”
Greenblatt also said his group will be “vigilant and give her and @ElonMusk credit if the service gets better …and reserve the right to call them out until it does.”
The ADL responded to calls for a ban by saying it is “unsurprised yet undeterred that anti-semites, white supremacists, conspiracy theorists and other trolls have launched a coordinated attack on our organization. This type of thing is nothing new.”
The group made no mention of Musk’s tweets in its response.
The feud between Musk and the ADL has raged since shortly after he bought Twitter for $44 billion last OctoberIt reached a crescendo in May when the mogul likened George Soros to X-Men supervillain Magneto following the controversial Democratic donor’s decision to dump his entire stake of Tesla stock.
Musk said Soros “hates humanity,” leading to the ADL to accuse Musk of “dangerous” speech.
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