Elon Musk’s endorsement of an antisemitic conspiracy theory this week — the latest in a very long line of objectionable behavior from the volatile de facto X CEO — has been (another) disaster for the company, which has already lost $25 billion under Musk’s stewardship. IBM pulled its advertising from X on Thursday, followed by the billion-dollar entertainment company Lionsgate. But the big blow came Friday afternoon, when Apple, the largest company in the world by market cap and a huge deal in the ad world, reportedly followed suit. Then Disney also paused its X spending, as did Warner Brothers Discovery, and Paramount Global, and Comcast/NBCUniversal, and Sony. It’s not clear if the economic fallout will stop there.
The White House condemned Musk for his comment. Spokesman Andrew Bates said on Friday that it was “unacceptable to repeat the hideous lie behind the most fatal act of antisemitism in American history at any time.”
On Wednesday, Musk, who has increasingly embraced far-right ideas, responded to a tweet in which an X user cited the antisemitic conspiracy that Jews are encouraging migration from developing countries to the U.S. and Europe in order to limit the voting power of white Christians. “Jewish communties [sic] have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them. I’m deeply disinterested in giving the tiniest shit now about western Jewish populations coming to the disturbing realization that those hordes of minorities that support flooding their country don’t exactly like them too much.” The concept, known as the Great Replacement Theory, was cited by the shooter who killed 11 people at the Tree of Life synagogue in 2018.
In response, Musk said that the user was speaking “the actual truth.”
Musk weighed in with another tweet on Friday evening, suggesting X would target the use of specific phrases which he said were euphemisms that “necessarily imply genocide.”
He later tweeted that “many of the largest advertisers are the greatest oppressors of your right to free speech” and vowed to file a “thermonuclear lawsuit” against Media Matters, which on Thursday prominently highlighted both Musk’s antisemitic comments as well as its research showing how ads from major advertisers had been appearing alongside pro-Nazi posts on X. (Antisemitic posts have surged in the app’s Musk era, according to disinformation specialists.) On Sunday, he did the bare minimum to fix the situation, tweeting that “bogus media stories” presented him as antisemitic and that “nothing could be further from the truth. I wish only the best for humanity and a prosperous and exciting future for all.”
CEO Linda Yaccarino has been trying, so far in vain, to control the damage — which is already a familiar bind for her. In an ineffectual attempt at cleanup on Thursday, she wrote that X has been “extremely clear about our efforts to combat antisemitism and discrimination.” She might want to tell her boss, or just look for a new job. Multiple reports state that ad executives are reaching out to her urging her to quit the company before her reputation is damaged by Musk’s offensive comments. “I think the advertising community is now working to save the reputation of a beloved member of our industry who does not share Elon Musk’s views and certainly did not know them when she accepted the role of CEO,” former Bank of America exec Lou Paskalis told Axios. “If she did, she would not have accepted it,”
This post has been updated with new reporting.
