Netanyahu met Musk in California on September 18 and urged him to strike a balance between protecting free expression and fighting hate speech after weeks of controversy over antisemitic content on X.
Musk responded by saying he was against antisemitism and against anything that “promotes hate and conflict,” repeating his previous statements that X would not promote hate speech.
During that visit, before the war, about 200 people protested against efforts by Netanyahu’s right-wing government to curb the powers of Israeli courts. They gathered outside Tesla’s California factory, where the meeting took place.
Then on November 15 Musk agreed with a post on X that falsely claimed Jewish people were stoking hatred against white people, saying the user who referenced the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory was speaking “the actual truth.”
The White House condemned what it called an “abhorrent promotion of antisemitic and racist hate” that “runs against our core values as Americans.”
Elon Musk’s X sues non-profit over report about ads next to pro-Nazi posts
Elon Musk’s X sues non-profit over report about ads next to pro-Nazi posts
Major US companies including Walt Disney, Warner Bros Discovery and NBCUniversal parent Comcast paused their advertisements on Musk’s social media site.
The “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory holds that Jewish people and leftists are engineering the ethnic and cultural replacement of white populations with non-white immigrants that will lead to a “white genocide.”
Antisemitism and Islamophobia have risen in the United States and worldwide, including during the now seven-week-old war between Israel and Hamas.
Following the outbreak of war, antisemitic incidents in the United States rose by nearly 400 per cent from the year-earlier period, according to the Anti-Defamation League, a non-profit organisation that fights antisemitism.
Musk has said X should be a platform for people to post diverse viewpoints, but the company will limit the distribution of certain posts that may violate its policies, calling the approach “freedom of speech, not reach.”
Elon Musk: public needs to know why OpenAI fired Sam Altman
Elon Musk: public needs to know why OpenAI fired Sam Altman
Israel’s almost US$500 billion economy, previously on track for growth to top 3 per cent this year with low unemployment, is now estimated at around 2 per cent with slow growth expected in 2024 as long as the war continues.
After an initial 6 per cent tumble at the outset of the war, the shekel has gained 8 per cent against the dollar and is now at pre-war levels. Helped mainly by local investors, stock prices have also recovered from a steep drop last month.