OAN’s Elizabeth Volberding
3:37 PM – Monday, January 22, 2024
Elon Musk, who has been accused of permitting anti-Semitic messaging on his social media outlet X, formerly Twitter, visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau site of a former Nazi death camp, saying that the catastrophe of the Holocaust “hits you much more in the heart when you see it in person.”
On Monday, Musk toured the site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp after he faced allegations for being anti-Semitic due to posts he made on his social media platform and for “tolerating” other anti-Semitic posts on the platform.
Musk visited the most well-known extermination camp built by Nazi Germany during World War II and then traveled to the nearby Polish city of Krakow to attend an anti-Semitism conference, which was sponsored by the European Jewish Association (EJA).
He acknowledged that, up until recently, he was “naive” about the severity of anti-Semitism, attributing this to the fact that the majority of his friends are Jewish and he has personally not encountered it very often himself.
Musk spoke with Daily Wire editor-in-chief Ben Shapiro at the conference event.
“In the circles that I move, I see almost no antisemitism,” Musk said at the conference. “And, you know, there’s this old joke ‘I’ve got like this one Jewish friend.’ No, I have like two-thirds of my friends who are Jewish. I have twice as many Jewish friends as non-Jewish friends. I’m like Jewish by association, I’m aspirationally Jewish.”
Musk justified his X platform as an outlet where “freedom of speech thrives,” stating that an open swap of ideas is something that ultimately aids in correcting hatred, also highlighting that the Nazis historically terminated freedom of press and information in the past.
“The overarching goal for the X platform is to be the best source of truth in the world,” Musk said. The “relentless pursuit of the truth is the goal with X and allowing people to say what they want to say, even if it’s controversial, provided that it does not break the law.”
Musk has been confronted with accusations from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a well-known Jewish civil rights organization, for tolerating several anti-Semitic posts on his social media platform.
In a message emailed to CBS MoneyWatch, the ADL expressed its hope that Musk’s platform X would change as a result of his visit and experience.
An ADL spokesperson wrote, “As Musk learns from his trip, we hope he and the leadership team at X will reflect on the ways in which antisemitism has been allowed to spread on their platform, as our research has shown, and truly redouble their efforts in terms of both policy and enforcement to stop its continued proliferation.”
“Anyone who has the opportunity to bear witness to the atrocities that took place in Auschwitz-Birkenau should go. Auschwitz serves as the ultimate reminder of what can happen when a society or its leaders are consumed with antisemitism,” the ADL added.
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