White House condemns Elon Musk over ‘unacceptable’ endorsement of antisemitic lie

The White House has condemned Elon Musk over his “unacceptable” endorsement of a “hideous lie” about Jewish people on X. 

On Wednesday (15 November), Musk, who has denied that the post was antisemitic, replied to a post sharing an antisemitic conspiracy theory, calling it “actual truth”. 

The post accused Jewish communities of pushing “hatred against whites” and included anti-immigrant sentiments. According to the BBC, it appeared to be an endorsement of a racist and antisemitic conspiracy theory known as “white genocide”. 

White House spokesperson Andrew Bates, who called Musk’s interaction with the post “unacceptable”, said: “We condemn this abhorrent promotion of antisemitic and racist hate in the strongest terms.” 

Bates said the post referred to a conspiracy theory that motivated Robert Bowers who killed 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018. 

“It is unacceptable to repeat the hideous lie behind the most fatal act of antisemitism in American history at any time, let alone one month after the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust,” Bates said in reference to the 7 October Hamas assault against Israel.

Musk has denied he is antisemitic and said his comment referred to groups like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and other unspecified “Jewish communities”.

ADL Chief Executive Jonathan Greenblatt posted on X to condemn Musk’s endorsement of the hateful post, he wrote: “At a time when antisemitism is exploding in America and surging around the world, it is indisputably dangerous to use one’s influence to validate and promote antisemitic theories.” 

Chief executive of X Linda Yaccarino posted in support of a tweet by Musk that stated “clear calls for extreme violence are against our terms of service and will result in suspension”. 

She wrote that X has been “extremely clear about our efforts to combat antisemitism and discrimination. There’s no place for it anywhere in the world – it’s ugly and wrong”.