Musk Threatens to Sue Anti-Defamation League After They State Observable Facts

Anti-Semitism? On My X?

In the latest Elon Musk nonsense, he has threatened to sue the Anti-Defamation League. Why, you might ask, would he sue a group dedicated to fighting anti-Semitism? Because they’re affecting his ad revenue, of course.

You see, the ADL has been pointing out that, since Musk took charge, there has been a notable and observable increase in online harassment on Twitter — I mean X — since Musk took over. This has been due in no small part to Musk rolling back rules on violent and hateful content and reinstating accounts that spew hate speech — think Andrew Tate, among others.

Yes, Musk’s dedication to making X a platform of free speech with minimal moderation rules has, predictably, turned it into a cesspool of primarily right-wing bigotry. And, it turns out, advertisers don’t like that. Many have been pulling their ad campaigns out of the X-space (not to be confused with Space-X) because they don’t like being associated with a platform that is primarily known for its many trolls and bigots.

Musk, using his normal level of introspection, decided that it was completely unrelated to his own choices and decisions around the platform. No, it couldn’t be his poor choices about content moderation that have made it into a cesspool full of bigots! It has to be the Jews that have ruined his perfect business venture.

He hasn’t outright said it — hell, like all good right-wingers with a dog whistle, he said that he’s “pro free speech” and “against anti-Semitism of any kind.” Of course, when being “pro free speech” means that you enable literal Nazis to do and say whatever they want on your platform without repercussions, it kinda looks bad on you.

That said, when you refuse to say anything bad about those literal Nazis, instead noting that they have a right to their viewpoint, it looks less like being a defender of free speech and more like being a tacit supporter. They do have a right to their viewpoint, I will not argue that. However, so do the advertisers who reasonably don’t want to be associated with a platform that is associated with Nazis.

Oh no, the consequences of his own actions! How will Mr. Musk respond?

Oh yeah, we went over this — by potentially suing the Anti-Defamation League.

Look, he shot himself in the foot by blowing $44 billion on Twitter and turning it into what it is now. You cannot transform a social media platform into fertile ground for racists and bigots and then blame the minority groups they target for pointing that fact out. He’s trying, but anyone with two brain cells to rub together knows what’s up.

And again, the whole “I’m not an anti-Semite, but…” is just such a great look for him. Pro tip: if you start any sentence with “I’m not racist, but…” I can guarantee that some racist shit will be coming out of your mouth almost immediately.

I know that Musk fancies himself a business genius, but he is not, and realistically he’s the only one to blame for advertisers fleeing his platform. He was the one who set up his little social media experiment to become a magnet for hate speech in the first place. Why is he surprised that advertisers don’t like that? Also, why is he surprised when people point that out?

Of course, being a business genius and one of the wealthiest people in the world means he’s obviously not at fault for anything that goes wrong in his life, so someone else must be tipping the scales against him. Woe is him, the man with billions of dollars, when *checks notes* a historically-oppressed minority group points out that there is a rise in hate speech against them on his platform! They’re clearly out to get him, the poor beleaguered billionaire who just wants to make a platform for hate spee — I mean free speech!

Racism and hate speech are inherently destructive — there is no place for them in a constructive conversation. Just because you have constitutionally-guaranteed free speech doesn’t mean you’re free from the consequences of that speech. Musk is just experiencing the consequences of his free speech, and those consequences are reduced ad revenue.

The fact of the matter is that the general public doesn’t like hate speech and doesn’t care for bigots and racists. Public opinion has been turning against Musk for a while now after a lot of us realized that he’s not a billionaire genius but a billionaire leech.

I see memes all the time that say things like “Elon Musk is the Thomas Edison of our generation and I mean that as a slur,” a reference to his penchant to take credit for the hard work of others who don’t get any credit. Granted, my echo chamber is pretty left-leaning, but every time I seek out right-leaning media and memes, they all tend to punch down, so I don’t feel as bad for insulting a wealthy man-child with the self-awareness of a rotting turnip.

Musk has enriched himself on the backs of many much smarter and harder-working than he is, thanks in large part to his wealthy parents giving him a boost early in life. This is the nature of unfettered capitalism, of course, but it’s becoming abundantly clear that Musk in particular is a special kind of idiot.

Simply put, Musk is welcome to sue the ADL and the Center for Countering Digital Hate for their “scare campaign[s] to drive away advertisers from the X platform.” But, and I cannot stress this enough, all of these wounds are self-inflicted, “consequences of my own actions” wounds.

Trying to sue agencies that fight hatred and bigotry isn’t a good look, especially when they are simply pointing out observable realities backed up with statistics that prove their points. The rise in hate speech on X is both notable and well-documented in an objective way. A lot of hate speech is pretty naked, and even the quiet dog-whistle types of hate speech are pretty clear in their intent to many of us.

Plus, when one of the first things you do is reinstate a bunch of accounts that are well-known for hate speech, it tends to make it look like you either don’t mind or actively endorse that speech. Musk would never actively endorse hate speech (probably? I don’t know anymore), but he’s definitely playing devil’s advocate for it.

However, Musk would do well to remember that playing devil’s advocate is, in fact, advocating for the devil. He’s taking real-world actions with real-world consequences for actual people and turning them into a sort of intellectual thought exercise in free speech. That’s great and all, but it is also a hallmark of his massive amounts of privilege that he is able to discuss anti-Semitism as a theoretical idea and not something that happens to people every day.

I have been happy to dunk on Elon Musk in the past because, quite frankly, it’s pretty easy. Honestly, I’ve written thousands of words pointing out how much of a tool he is and I haven’t even scratched the surface. If you’re interested in reading those articles, you can find them here:

And again, Musk might not be explicitly an anti-Semite, but he’s certainly not doing himself any favors. Insert your own joke about the X just being a swastika that he sold pieces of to keep his platform afloat.

Be well out there.