After stunning the business world by telling any marketer pausing their advertising on X (formerly Twitter) over antisemitic content to “go f–k yourself,” Elon Musk closed the week by taking more swings.
On his platform, acquired last fall for $44 billion, the CEO of Tesla posted a self-pitying meme featuring a forlorn robot. The caption read, “Here I am, the richest man in the world, philosemite, climate crusader, and I still get s–t from idiots.” While the term “philosemite” is not officially recognized in dictionaries, it has been reasonably defined as an individual who holds respect and admiration for the Jewish people and Jewish history.
In another communication, Musk shared a bar chart from The Generation Lab’s recent study on social media, exploring the correlation between various platforms and the prevalence of anti-Israel and antisemitic content. The chart depicted TikTok and Instagram with notably higher levels of objectionable material compared to X/Twitter. Musk questioned Disney’s decision to boycott X while investing millions in other platforms, without providing a link to the complete study or additional details.
Two weeks ago, Disney, along with major advertisers like Apple, Paramount Global, and Warner Bros. Discovery, halted ads on X/Twitter after Musk endorsed an antisemitic post. Musk later referred to the post as a mistake. Media Matters, a non-profit organization, has documented issues with ad messages appearing alongside hateful or antisemitic posts on X. Musk has filed a lawsuit against Media Matters, denying accusations of antisemitism. the business world
At the New York Times DealBook Summit, Disney CEO Bob Iger explained the company’s decision to suspend ads, citing Musk’s public stance and association with X as not aligning positively with Disney. Iger stated, “Elon is larger than life in many respects, and that his name is very much tied to the companies he either founded or he owns… And by him taking the position that he took in quite a public manner, we just felt that the association with that position and Elon Musk and X was not necessarily a positive one for us. And we decided we would pull our advertising.”