Elon Musk on Monday visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau website of a former Nazi loss of life camp, a transfer that comes after the billionaire proprietor of X confronted a backlash for calling anĀ antisemitic put upĀ on the social platform “the precise fact.”
Musk’s November endorsement of the antisemitic put up prompted some prime advertisers, together with Apple, Comcast, Disney, IBM and Warner Bros., to tug their advertising {dollars} from the platform. Musk later mentioned the choice of those firms to chop spending on X, previously often called Twitter, may “kill the corporate.”
Musk additionally got here underneath hearth from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), an advocacy group that works to fight hate towards Jewish folks, with the group’s CEO Jonathan Greenblatt writing on X that it’s “harmful to make use of one’s affect to validate and promote antisemitic theories.”
On Monday, Musk was photographed visiting the Birkenau website along with Every day Wire podcaster Ben Shapiro, with each set to attend a convention on antisemitism this week. Birkenau is a village close to Oswiecim, in southern Poland, fenced off with barbed wire, the place picket barracks for the prisoners and the ruins of a gasoline chamber endure as proof of Nazi crimes, and the place a monument to the victims stands. Worldwide ceremonies are held there annually.
Musk additionally reposted a photograph of himself and Shapiro touring the positioning, the place greater than 1.1 million folks have been murdered by the Nazis and their henchmen throughout World Battle II. Most who have been killed have been Jews, however the victims additionally included Poles, Roma, Soviet prisoners of warfare, and others. In all, about 6 million European Jews died in the course of the Holocaust. When the Soviets liberated the camp, they discovered about 7,000 survivors.
In an announcement emailed to CBS MoneyWatch, the ADL mentioned it hoped the go to would end in modifications at X. An ADL spokesperosn wrote, “As Musk learns from his journey, we hope he and the management group at X will mirror on the methods wherein antisemitism has been allowed to unfold on their platform, as our analysis has proven, and really redouble their efforts when it comes to each coverage and enforcement to cease its continued proliferation.”
The ADL added, “Anybody who has the chance to bear witness to the atrocities that passed off in Auschwitz-Birkenau ought to go. Auschwitz serves as the last word reminder of what can occur when a society or its leaders are consumed with antisemitism.”
Antisemitism convention
Musk’s go to on the most infamous website of the horrors of the Holocaust got here earlier than a scheduled look later Monday at a convention on antisemitism organized by the European Jewish Affiliation within the close by Polish metropolis of Krakow.
Musk had been anticipated to make the go to on Tuesday and participate in a memorial service, along with political figures attending the EJA convention in Krakow, however confirmed up on the Nazi loss of life camp on Monday as an alternative.
“As a result of schedule issues, earlier than Elon Musk’s arrival to the European Jewish Affiliation convention, he took half in a non-public go to to Auschwitz-Birkenau with EJA Chairman Rabbi Menachem Margolin, Ben Shapiro and Holocaust survivor Gidon Lev. Musk laid a wreath on the wall of loss of life and took half in a brief memorial ceremony and repair by the Birkenau memorial,” the EJA mentioned in an e mail.
Antisemitic X put up
The backlash over Musk’s views got here after he responded to an X consumer’s put up that claimed Jews “have been pushing the precise form of dialectical hatred towards whites that they declare to need folks to cease utilizing towards them.”Ā
Musk responded, “You’ve gotten mentioned the precise fact” whereas additionally criticizing the ADL, writing, “the ADL unjustly assaults the vast majority of the West, regardless of the vast majority of the West supporting the Jewish folks and Israel. It is because they can’t, by their very own tenets, criticize the minority teams who’re their major menace.”
He later apologized for the remark, calling it the “dumbest” put up he is ever accomplished.
āWith reporting by the Related Press.