Elon Musk Just Can’t Stop Posting Antisemitic Tweets

It’s been quite the week for Twitter CEO Elon Musk, as he has continued writing anti-semitic posts on Twitter. While jury selection in the trial of the Pittsburgh Tree of Life synagogue shooter continued on Wednesday, Musk used his platform to boost virulent antisemitic conspiracy theories—including some that the Pittsburgh suspect himself spread prior to allegedly killing 11 people in October 2018.

Earlier this week, Musk posted a series of tweets attacking Hungarian billionaire philanthropist George Soros, who he compared to Jewish X-Men super villain Magneto, claiming Soros wanted to “erode the very fabric of civilization.” Then, in an interview with CNBC on Tuesday, Musk doubled down on the comments, dismissing them as simply his “opinion.”

Despite widespread condemnation of his posts, Musk took his attacks even further on Wednesday night. “Does the public realize that Soros wants open borders?” Musk tweeted. “Literally not even checking to see if they’re convicted serial killers on the run, which has happened more than once.”

Musk was repeating an oft-repeated and widely debunked claim that Soros is attempting to help facilitate the replacement of Western civilization with immigrant populations, a conspiracy known as the Great Replacement Theory.

This was one of the claims that the accused Pittsburgh assailant posted on the far-right social network Gab before allegedly carrying out the shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue.

Musk also responded to tweets spreading other Soros conspiracy theories, including false claims that Soros, a Holocaust survivor, helped roundup Jews for the Nazis, and claims that Soros is somehow linked to the Rothschilds, an entirely separate antisemitic conspiracy theory about Jewish bankers which the Soros’ conspiracies have largely replaced.

Finally, Musk also sarcastically apologized for comparing Soros to the X-men villain, tweeting: “It was unfair to Magneto.”

The attacks on Soros, which came after the billionaire’s investment fund announced it had sold its entire stake in Musk’s electric car company Tesla, are just the latest in a long and troubling history of antisemitic posts by the Twitter CEO.

Last year, just days after Musk announced he was buying Twitter for $44 billion, he tweeted about the antisemitic conspiracy that Jews control the U.S. media, including a reference to Soros.

When Musk’s takeover of Twitter finally became official in October 2022, the South African entrepreneur wasted little time in making the platform a fertile ground for antisemites, white nationalists, and neo-Nazis by reinstating accounts previously banned for breaches of Twitter’s hate speech policies. 

Among those he welcomed back onto the platform were avowed antisemites like Andrew Anglin, the white supremacist who runs the Daily Stormer and far-right influencer and white nationalist known as Baked Alaska who in December 2016 tweeted: “Internet: Why do you want to gas the Jews?” Possibly the most egregious of all, however, was the reinstatement of David Icke, the conspiracy theorist who believes Jews are lizard people who control the world and faked the Holocaust.

He also allowed Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, back on the platform at the height of his antisemitic tirade last year. Ye was only banned from Twitter after he directly attacked Musk himself.

But Musk, who has banned some journalists from his so-called “free speech” platform, didn’t just allow these extremists back on Twitter—he also interacted with many of them.

In recent months, Musk has interacted with Kim Dotcom, who told Ye last year that he was right to blame Jews for colluding to control the media and entertainment industries, but made the mistake of being too overt.

This week, Israel’s Foreign Ministry said that Musk is solely responsible for the sharp rise of antisemitism on Twitter, and accused the Tesla owner of “doing nothing to address” the fact that Twitter is now “filled with antisemitic conspiracies and hate speech targeting Jews all over the world.”

The Anti-Defamation League’s CEO Jonathan Greenblatt called Musk’s rhetoric "dangerous" and said “it will embolden extremists.”

Musk’s posts on Wednesday night are by far his most overtly antisemitic to date, but the criticism he has received seems unlikely to stop him from continuing to boost these conspiracy theories. He has been criticized before for his promotion of other conspiracy theories, including QAnon conspiracy theories, antivax content, and a random anti-gay conspiracy theory about the attack on Paul Pelosi—though these critiques have not slowed him down.