Hong Kong/Jerusalem CNN –
Elon Musk visited Israel on Monday, meeting the country’s leaders and walking through a kibbutz destroyed by Hamas last month as he tried to calm outrage sparked by his endorsement of an anti-Semitic post on his social media platform. Media platform X was created.
Musk was taken by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Kfar Azza – one of the kibbutzim attacked on October 7th. The kibbutz was home to Abigail Edan, a four-year-old American dual citizen who was kidnapped by the militant group that day and released Sunday.
In a live online conversation On Monday with Netanyahu, Musk agreed with the prime minister that Israel must destroy Hamas.
“Those who intend murder must be neutralized. “Then the propaganda has to stop,” Musk said. “They just train people to be murderers.”
He also said that Gaza needed to be made “prosperous.”
“If (all) that happens, I think it will be a good future,” he said. “I would like to help.”
Musk also met with Israeli President Isaac Herzog behind closed doors.
In a readout of the meeting, the president’s office said Herzog had called on Musk to take action against online anti-Semitism.
“Unfortunately, we are inundated by anti-Semitism, which is hatred of Jews,” Herzog told Musk, according to the statement. “I think we have to fight this together, because the platforms you lead unfortunately have a large reservoir of hatred, Jew-hatred and anti-Semitism.”
In an earlier statement, the president’s office said representatives of the families of hostages held by Hamas also attended the meeting to “talk about the horrors of the Hamas terrorist attack and the ongoing pain and uncertainty for the prisoners.” speak.
Rachel Goldberg was one of the family members who met with Musk on Monday. Goldberg told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “The Lead” on Monday that Musk seemed “really concerned and moved” when she showed him the video that captured the moment her 23-year-old son Hersh Goldberg-Polin’s arm was torn off became attacks of October 7th.
“I think he was really taken aback and he was also very surprised that this was happening while someone was at a music festival,” Goldberg said. “I found him to be a very compassionate person who was obviously shaken and shaken by what he had seen.”
During the visit to the destroyed kibbutz, Israeli officials explained to Musk what had happened, the Israeli government press office said.
“The Prime Minister and Musk then went to the Edan family home, where Musk heard about the family history of four-year-old Abigail Edan, whose parents were murdered and who was kidnapped to Gaza and released from Hamas captivity yesterday,” the press office said added.
The billionaire’s visit to Israel comes more than a week after he endorsed claims that Jewish communities were fomenting “anti-white hatred,” prompting a rebuke from the White House and a major exodus of advertisers on X, formerly known as Twitter platform, led.
In an X post Earlier this month, one user accused Jewish communities of spreading “exactly the kind of dialectical anti-white hatred that they claim they want people to stop using against them.” The post also referenced “hordes of minorities” flooding Western countries, a popular anti-Semitic conspiracy theory.
In response, Musk said, “You were telling the actual truth.”
The anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that Jews want to bring undocumented minorities to Western countries in order to reduce the white majority in those countries has been promoted by online hate groups.
Musk said in subsequent posts at the time that he did not believe that hatred of white people extended “to all Jewish communities.”
However, he said that the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), an organization that fights anti-Semitism worldwide, “unfairly attacks the majority of the West, even though the majority of the West supports the Jewish people and Israel.” That’s because they cannot, on their own principles, criticize the minority groups that represent their greatest threat.”
The comments – which come amid a rise in hate crimes in the US against Jews and Muslims – sparked swift condemnation from human rights groups and politicians.
Since then, Musk has denied all allegations of racism and last week
For X, the problem proves too difficult to ignore. The controversy has quickly become a major commercial problem for the company, with at least a dozen major brands halting advertising spending since last Wednesday. These include Disney, IBM, Fox Sports and even the European Commission.
Even before the recent uproar, X had been criticized for spreading anti-Semitic discourse on its platform. Organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Center for Countering Digital Hate reported an increase in hate speech on X last year – findings that Musk either criticized or denied.
In September, Musk threatened to sue the ADL for defamation, claiming the group’s reports had hurt advertising sales on X.
More recently, the organization has also reported a dramatic increase in anti-Semitic posts on X, particularly since the Israel-Hamas war began in early October.
X has pushed back against similar claims from progressive media watchdog Media Matters, which also highlighted anti-Semitic and Nazi content on X in an analysis earlier this month.
In response, X Media sued Matters, claiming the group misrepresented how likely ads were to appear alongside extremist content on the site. Additionally, the company has called on its advertising partners to help protect what it calls “freedom of expression.”
Musk’s visit to Israel comes during a lull in hostilities with Hamas. In the first three days of the ceasefire, Hamas released a total of 58 hostages, mostly women and children, in return for the release of 117 Palestinian prisoners and said it wanted to extend the ceasefire.
In an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Sunday, Herzog spoke about the bittersweet moment of reuniting freed hostages with their families.
“It is something that brings us joy, but of course also joy with a lot of sadness, because at least 200 hostages are still being held there,” Herzog told Blitzer.
Herzog said the ceasefire could be extended, citing the original agreement that there would be an additional day of ceasefire for every ten hostages released. However, he said it was up to Hamas to release more hostages.
This story has been updated with additional developments.