Bloomberg News reports:
Elon Musk is blaming the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) for a slump in US advertising revenue on X Corp., the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
Ad sales are still down 60% “primarily due to pressure on advertisers” mounted by the ADL, Musk said in a series of posts Monday.
The ADL has said that reports of harassment and extremist content on the platform have spiked since Musk’s takeover.
Forbes reports:
“The ADL, because they are so aggressive in their demands to ban social media accounts for even minor infractions, are ironically the biggest generators of anti-Semitism on this platform!” Musk tweeted early Monday, somehow suggesting that Jews are to blame for anti-semitism.
Musk’s tweet on Monday was in response to Keith Woods, a white nationalist from Ireland who has previously called himself a “raging anti-semite” in a since-deleted tweet from 2019. “Alex Jones doesn’t want to #BanTheADL because ‘they’re the most pro-Hitler organisation I’ve ever seen’,” Woods tweeted.
Musk’s relationship with far-right voices on X have gotten more attention ever since he purchased Twitter in October 2022 and made a number of changes to the platform. Musk has defended a number of racists, including Dilbert creator Scott Adams when he advocated for racial segregation.
To be super clear, I’m pro free speech, but against anti-Semitism of any kind
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 4, 2023
Since the acquisition, The @ADL has been trying to kill this platform by falsely accusing it & me of being anti-Semitic
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 4, 2023
Our US advertising revenue is still down 60%, primarily due to pressure on advertisers by @ADL (that’s what advertisers tell us), so they almost succeeded in killing X/Twitter!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 4, 2023
If this continues, we will have no choice but to file a defamation suit against, ironically, the “Anti-Defamation” League.
If they lose the defamation suit, we will insist that they drop the the “anti” part of their name, since obviously … 😂
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 4, 2023
over the past day on X:
➡️ ADL director says he had a meeting w/ X CEO
➡️ far right users attack w/ anti-semitic posts
➡️ Nick Fuentes helps trend #BanTheADL
➡️ Elon Musk signals support, liking posts from white nationalist
➡️ users start seeing this white supremacist ad on X: pic.twitter.com/tTHG4YIKHK— Matt Binder (@MattBinder) September 1, 2023
read more about how the #BanTheADL hashtag began to trend and the X-approved white supremacist ad running across the platform here: https://t.co/PkmZeMGPsO
— Matt Binder (@MattBinder) September 1, 2023
