26/12/2023
Transphobe billionaire Elon Musk has been called out by Jewish and anti-racist groups after his increasingly erratic behaviour on the former Twitter Platform, which he owns, saw him agreeing with anti-semitic conspiracy theories. The Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish community organisation which monitors the fringes of politics, from extreme left, to extreme right and conspiracy groups which peddle various forms of hatred, said “At a time when antisemitism is exploding in America and surging around the world, it is indisputably dangerous to use one’s influence to validate and promote antisemitic theories." The hapless Elon Musk was not done, however, and despite the ADL's censure carried on ranting about supposed threats to the "white race". The Atlantic published an essay lambasting Musk, titled “Elon Musk’s Disturbing ‘Truth’”, and the watchdog publication MediaMatters headlined its story on the topic “Elon Musk lights his tiki torch”, in reference to the infamous 2017 march by white supremacists at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. Whilst many independent researchers agree that the hate bubbles perpetuated by the former Twitter website are a threat to democracy and are in danger of radicalising heterosexual white men into an army of violence, there are also some reasons to suppose that the website may be losing influence. The Guardian notes "Since Musk’s reign began, X has been flailing as a business: advertisers are spending less, regulators are circling, staff is at less than 50% of what it used to be after huge layoffs and user numbers are down."
