(Bloomberg) — Hedge fund manager Bill Ackman defended Elon Musk after major advertisers pulled ads from social media site X over anti-Semitic comments.
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Musk received backlash after agreeing to a post that said Jewish people have a “dialectical hatred” of white people. “You told the real truth,” X’s billionaire owner posted on Wednesday.
Read more: Musk’s comment and rampant anti-Semitism on X Fuel outrage
That sparked criticism from the White House and shareholders of Tesla Inc., Musk’s only publicly traded company. Some investors said he should be suspended from his position as head of the electric car maker. Advertisers from Apple Inc. to Walt Disney Co. have also paused or halted their spending on X.
According to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index, Ackman, CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management, is worth about $2.2 billion.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the hedge fund manager said in October that he was working on a deal with
Ackman also said that he had already financially backed the social media platform through a $10 million investment through the launch of his company.
A frequent post on social media, he loudly called on his alma mater Harvard to take action to combat anti-Semitism.
Read more: Ackman pushes suspensions at Harvard to combat anti-Semitism
(Adds details of Ackman’s connections to X starting in the fifth paragraph.)
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