Twitter owner and CEO Elon Musk is facing criticism from the Anti-Defamation League and the Israeli Foreign Ministry over his comments against billionaire hedge funder and left-wing megadonor George Soros.
On Tuesday, Musk took to Twitter to compare Soros to the comic book supervillain Magneto, and accused him of hating humanity.
"Soros reminds me of Magneto," Musk tweeted.
In a follow up post, Musk responded to a Twitter user who claimed Soros is motivated by “good intentions”. "You assume they are good intentions. They are not. He wants to erode the very fabric of civilization. Soros hates humanity."
Later on Tuesday, ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt tweeted that Musk’s comments “will embolden extremists who already contrive anti-Jewish conspiracies and have tried to attack Soros and Jewish communities as a result.”
Musk fired back that the Anti-Defamation League is itself engaging in defamation, tweeting: “ADL should just drop the ‘A.'”
On Wednesday, Israel’s Foreign Ministry weighed in, claiming that Musk’s recent comments had sparked a rise in antisemitic activity online.
“The phrase ‘The Jews’ spiked on the trending topics list of Twitter today, following a tweet with antisemitic overtones by none other than the owner and CEO of the social media outlet, Elon Musk,” the Foreign Ministry said.
“Musk’s tweet immediately brought a flood of antisemitic conspiracy theories on Twitter.”