Major brands pull adverts from X as Elon Musk stirs controversy
Elon Musk tweeted support for the 'Great Replacement' conspiracy theory.
A cascade of major technology and media companies have cut advertising with X, formerly Twitter, after Elon Musk tweeted enthusiasm for an antisemitic post.
The companies include Apple, Disney, IBM, ComCast, Warner Bros, Lions Gate Entertainment, Paramount Global and Sony Pictures.
The Tesla chief agreed with a post that falsely claimed Jewish people were stoking hatred against white people, saying the user who referenced the ‘Great Replacement’ conspiracy theory was speaking ‘the actual truth’.
Apple and IBM’s ad’s had run alongside tweets praising Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, according to a report by Media Matters.
The ‘Great Replacement’ conspiracy theory holds that Jewish people and leftists are engineering the ethnic and cultural replacement of white populations with non-white immigrants that will lead to a ‘white genocide’.
Musk plans to file a ‘thermonuclear lawsuit’ against Media Matters and ‘those who colluded in this fraudulent attack on our company’.
His remarks have been met with criticism from the White House which accused him of ‘abhorrent promotion of antisemitic and racist hate’ that ‘runs against our core values as Americans’.
‘It is unacceptable to repeat the hideous lie… one month after the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust,’ White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said, referring to the October 7 attack by Hamas against Israel.
Apple was one of the social network’s biggest advertisers, spending as much as $100m a year there as of November 2022, when Musk purchased it, according to Bloomberg.
There has been a disturbing rise in antisemitic and racist posts on the social network in the aftermath of Musk’s disastrous acquisition.
IBM is also one of X’s biggest advertisers and said in a statement: ‘IBM has zero tolerance for hate speech and discrimination and we have immediately suspended all advertising on X while we investigate this entirely unacceptable situation.’
X’s CEO Linda Yaccarino said: ‘X’s point of view has always been very clear that discrimination by everyone should STOP across the board.’
Representatives for Musk and X declined to comment on the post.
Musk later posted on the platform: ‘Many of the largest advertisers are the greatest oppressors of your right to free speech.’
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