Criticized for the rampant anti-Semitism spread on his social network X, Elon Musk was in Israel on Monday. During an interview, the president of the Hebrew state therefore took the opportunity to remind him of the “enormous role” he has to play in the fight against hatred of Jews.
“We are inundated with anti-Semitism” and “hatred of Jews impacts the behavior of human beings in so many places in the world,” stressed Isaac Herzog, according to images released by the Israeli presidency.
“An emotionally difficult day” for Musk
“You have a huge role to play because the platforms that you run, unfortunately, harbor a lot of hatred, hatred of Jews, anti-Semitism. I think we need to discuss (…) how to combat this hatred,” the Israeli president told Elon Musk. “It always starts with the Jews, it never stops with the Jews,” he recalled.
Elon Musk had previously visited, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Kfar Aza, a kibbutz in the south of the country attacked on October 7 by Hamas. The boss of X said he experienced “an emotionally difficult day: seeing the places where people were murdered. And also see the video where the murderers rejoice”, images of “extremely disturbing”.
“These people have been fed propaganda since they were children (…) when humans are fed untruths since they were children, they will think that the murder of innocents is a good thing. Propaganda can influence people’s minds to that extent,” he noted, without mentioning possible measures on X.
The White House castigates the positions of the boss of
Relatives of Israelis held hostage by Hamas spoke to Elon Musk during this meeting. “You are a very powerful man,” Malki Shem-Tov told him, calling on him to “relay our voices to bring back the hostages,” including his son Omer. “We know that innocent civilians are also suffering terribly in Gaza. We families are suffering horribly, we would appreciate any help you can provide,” Rachel, mother of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, asked him.
Elon Musk has been under fire for the proliferation of hateful, anti-Semitic, racist and homophobic comments on the social network since he bought it in October 2022. The White House accused him in mid-November of “ abject promotion of anti-Semitic and racist hatred.” In a post on X, he endorsed a conspiracy theory according to which Jews had a secret plan to encourage illegal immigration to the West in order to weaken the white majority there.