American billionaire Elon Musk visited the site of the Nazi death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau on Monday, a few weeks after he caused a stir with conspiratorial and anti-Semitic statements.
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Mr Musk was also due to speak during a roundtable at 4pm (1500 GMT) at a conference in Krakow, just ahead of the 79th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, January 27, the date of Holocaust Remembrance Day .
In the morning, Mr. Musk took a private tour of the site of the extermination camp built by Nazi Germany between 1940 and 1945 in occupied Poland, where a million European Jews and more than 100,000 non-Jews were exterminated.
AFP
This conference, organized by the European Jewish Association (EJA), comes after Mr. Musk responded to a tweet in November in which he claimed that the Jewish people were fomenting “hatred against whites,” with the message: “You have them “told the exact truth” before apologizing.
The owner of Tesla and SpaceX is also accused of allowing hate speech to spread on X (formerly Twitter) since purchasing that platform for $44 billion in October 2022.
Senior European politicians and Elon Musk met in Krakow “to discuss and find solutions to the astronomical rise in anti-Semitism in Europe,” the EJA said, saying this “worrying trend” has increased since the start of the war in Gaza.
“Absurd to be blamed”
During a live discussion broadcast on X in September, EJA President Rabbi Menachem Margolin invited Mr. Musk to visit the Auschwitz site.
According to Mr. Margolin, it will be a “very strong statement” from Elon Musk when he speaks after this visit and “could go a long way toward raising awareness of the Holocaust and the fight against anti-Semitism.”
Mr Musk agreed it could be “useful” as an “example to others”. During the discussion, Mr. Musk explained that he wanted to be Jewish and that he attended a Hebrew preschool.
“It is absurd to be accused of something when all the evidence points the other way and my life story is actually pro-Semitic,” he added at the time.
Mr. Musk threatened to file a complaint against the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), an anti-Semitism association that has denounced a significant increase in disinformation and homophobic and racist slurs on X because of its moderation rules changing with the arrival of Elon would have changed musk.
And X is suing Media Matters, accusing the nonprofit of scaring away advertisers by claiming the platform is littered with anti-Semitic content.
“A big role to play”
In November, the White House accused Mr. Musk of “abject promotion of anti-Semitic and racist hatred” when he posted an anti-white post.
Mr. Musk's statement triggered an avalanche of departures from X major advertisers.
The billionaire later apologized for what he called “the worst and stupidest post I have ever written.” He said his remark was misinterpreted and he would try to clarify that in subsequent messages.
Following the controversy, the SpaceX founder visited Israel and explained that this trip had been planned previously and was not an “apology tour.” Israeli President Isaac Herzog then told him that he had “a big role to play” in the fight against anti-Semitism.