Elon Musk has threatened to sue the US-based Jewish non-governmental organization Anti-Defamation League, accusing the group of “killing X/Twitter” with their claims of antisemitism.
“To clear our platform’s name on the matter of anti-Semitism, it looks like we have no choice but to file a defamation lawsuit against the Anti-Defamation League. Oh, the irony,” Musk said in an X post on Monday.
According to RT, “the Tesla and SpaceX CEO, who bought Twitter last year for $44 billion and later renamed it X, blamed the ADL for a 60% drop in advertising revenue.”
To clear our platform’s name on the matter of anti-Semitism, it looks like we have no choice but to file a defamation lawsuit against the Anti-Defamation League … oh the irony!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 4, 2023
Musk reportedly said that “the ADL had pressured advertisers not to use the platform by falsely associating X and its new owner with anti-Semitism. “
The ADL, which describes itself as “ the leading anti-hate organization in the world”, has been criticized for its weaponized use of anti-semitism allegations and for “promoting critical race theory”, RT reported.
“Under the guise of fighting hate speech, the ADL has a long history of wielding its moral authority to attack Arabs (and) blacks,” Emmaia Gelman wrote in an article for the Boston Review in 2019.
100+ organizations have joined the call to #DropTheADL. The campaign urges groups to rethink their relationship w/the Anti-Defamation League, which has a long history of spying on Black, Palestinian, & left-wing activists and undermining the rights of marginalized communities. pic.twitter.com/6lLteou9qd
— IMEU (@theIMEU) August 12, 2020
“The ADL has continued to militate against internationalist, intersectional anti-racism, and has used its status as ‘the nation’s premier civil rights organization’ to do so,” Gelman continued.
Moreover, the ADL has been often accused of falsely conflating between any criticism of Israel’s violations with anti-Jewish racism.
In 2022, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Jewish Voice for Peace, and National Students for Justice in Palestine (National SJP) issued a joint statement to condemn ADL’s attack on groups supporting Palestinian human rights.
“The ADL’s latest intimidation campaign is based on a highly problematic definition of antisemitism that attempts to conflate criticism of the Israeli government or Zionism with anti-Jewish racism. This is as dangerous as it is baseless,” the statement read.
(PC, RT)
