Elon Musk launched an unfounded Twitter assault on George Soros, a regular subject of antisemitic conspiracy theories, accusing the billionaire of hating mankind only days after Soros acknowledged selling a small interest in Tesla.
While Musk’s words include no mention of the billionaire philanthropist’s ethnicity, Musk has been chastised for using hazardous terminology that might incite future assaults on Soros.
Musk compared him to X-Men villain Magneto, who, like Soros, was a Holocaust survivor, according to the character’s backstory in the books. Musk reacted to a Twitter user who defended Soros as having good intentions that are condemned by people who disagree with his views, saying, “You assume they are good intentions.” They do not. He wishes to undermine the basic foundations of civilisation. Soros despises mankind.”
The CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, a civil rights organization that analyzes and combats antisemitism, Jonathan Greenblatt, blasted Musk’s remark, saying it “will embolden extremists.”
“The far right frequently holds up Soros as the source of the world’s problems, using antisemitic tropes,” Greenblat tweeted. “To see Elon Musk, regardless of his intent, feed this segment — comparing him to a Jewish supervillain, claiming Soros ‘hates humanity’ — is not only distressing, but also dangerous: it will embolden extremists who have already concocted anti-Jewish conspiracy theories and attempted to attack Soros and Jewish communities as a result.”
Musk reacted to Greenblatt’s post with his own tweets. Musk remarked in one, “Hey, stop defaming me.” He stated in the second, “ADL should just drop the ‘A.'”
Soros did not react to Musk on Twitter using his own account. His single tweet from Monday, the day Musk started his attack, was a denial of a heart attack story. “I am alive and healthy,” he tweeted. Many of the 13,500 responses on the tweet were from individuals who wished him dead.
Soros’ investment business and the Open Society Foundations, his principal charity, did not reply to requests for comment.
Musk defended his tweets on Soros, particularly his claim that Soros hates mankind, as his perspective in an interview with CNBC following Tesla’s shareholder meeting on Tuesday. Musk stated that he has the right to tweet his thoughts, even if it causes Twitter’s primary source of revenue to depart. He stated that he “didn’t care” if his inflammatory tweets enraged Tesla consumers or Twitter advertisers.
“I’ll say what I want to say, and if that means losing money, so be it,” Musk said in an interview.
Musk has frequently tweeted incendiary remarks, including those in favour of conspiracy theories.
Since Musk took over the firm last year, Twitter’s advertising revenue has dropped dramatically. Musk said last week that NBCUniversal ad executive Linda Yaccarino will succeed him as CEO of Twitter.
Soros, 92, has long been a target of conspiracy theories and antisemites on the right. He is a major supporter of Democratic candidates and leftist causes. According to Open Secrets, a website that analyzes political contributions, he gave $50 million to the Democracy PAC II Superpac in November and $125 million in the autumn of 2022.
He is also the founder and significant contributor of the Open Society Foundations, which has the declared goal of fighting for justice, democratic government, and human rights. It has enraged certain authoritarian regimes, notably Viktor Orban, Prime Minister of Soros’ own Hungary. Orban is a close supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and he has been accused of dictatorial measures in Hungary.
Attacks on Soros have escalated in recent years, coinciding with an increase in antisemitic occurrences. According to the ADL, anti-Semitic events in the United States hit their peak last year since the organization began tracking them in 1979.
Some right-wing influences in the United States have supported Orban and other authoritarian governments condemned by Soros. Former President Donald Trump and many Republicans who criticized New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg for prosecuting Trump on criminal charges were eager to point out that Bragg got campaign funding from Soros.
Musk has faced criticism since taking over Twitter for allowing Nazi supporters to return to the social media network as part of a larger, wholesale unbanning of previously banned accounts due to his claimed philosophy of supporting “free speech.” Andrew Anglin, a self-professed white nationalist who established the neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer, was among those permitted back on Twitter.
According to ADL and the Center for Countering Digital Hate research, the level of hate speech on Twitter has increased considerably under Musk’s leadership. Musk called the two watchdog groups’ reports “utterly false,” claiming that “hate speech impressions,” or the number of times a tweet containing hate speech has been viewed, “continue to decline” since his early days as a company owner, when the platform experienced a spike in hate speech designed to test Musk’s tolerance.
Musk, who has almost 140 million Twitter followers, has regularly propagated right-wing stereotypes and conspiracy theories on Twitter, including a false allegation about Paul Pelosi, the husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. (Musk later removed the tweet.) Musk has also made personal attacks on people with whom he disagrees or who have attacked his businesses.
In terms of his total financial portfolio, Soros’ stake in Tesla was tiny. According to SEC filings, he acquired 89,600 split-adjusted shares in the second quarter of 2022, kept them through the third quarter, and then purchased an additional 242,000 shares in the last three months of 2022. However, according to his most recent report last week, he sold his whole ownership somewhere in the first three months of this year.
Musk has actually sold significantly more Tesla (TSLA) shares in recent months as he has grappled with rising losses at Twitter, which he acquired in October. He last sold 22 million shares in December. However, he is still by far Tesla’s (TSLA) greatest shareholder.