Elon Musk’s dangerous game with anti-Semitism Why TikTok is suddenly celebrating Osama Bin Laden

In her book ‘Doppelgänger’ Naomi Klein draws attention to a paradox. She writes: “It is striking that the two most persistent accusations against Jews in generations – they are the scheming bankers on the one hand and the scheming Marxists on the other – completely contradict each other.”

This paradox makes it possible for anti-Semitism to occur on both the right and the left. You can also encounter hatred of Jews in business. The most famous anti-Semite of that time was Henry Ford.

Not only did Ford privately insult the Jews in the worst possible way, he also owned ‘The Dearborn Indepedent’, a newspaper very similar to the ‘Stürmer’. Adolf Hitler quoted Ford extensively in his inflammatory pamphlet ‘Mein Kampf’ and is said to have once described him as his role model.

In the 1930s, the banker JP Morgan Junior, the son of the legendary JP, was one of the well-known anti-Semites. Today Elon Musk joins this inglorious front. What’s happening there?

Musk has long feuded with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), an influential Jewish lobby group. This argument came to a head last Wednesday. It started with a tweet, or whatever you call such messages on Musk responded to this message, adding: “You spoke the truth.”

Musk has stung a hornet’s nest with this. He implicitly supports the thesis of the ‘great population exchange’, a conspiracy theory that is widespread in right-wing extremist circles. For example, the torchbearers at the infamous fascist demonstration in Charlottesville in the summer of 2017 shouted: “Jews will not replace us.” (Jews will not drive us out.) The attacker who killed 11 people in an attack on a synagogue in Pittsburgh on October 27, 2018, also invoked the “Great Displacement.”

The ADL responded energetically to Musk’s post. CEO Jonathan Greenblatt also wrote in a tweet: “At a time when anti-Semitism is exploding in America and around the world, there can be no doubt that it is extremely dangerous to affirm and spread anti-Semitic theories.”

The Jewish organization’s outrage is understandable. Musk has a huge megaphone. He has approximately 160 million followers on his platform X. At the same time, the richest man in the world is increasingly becoming an important player in geopolitics. He was one of the guests at Chinese President Xi Jinping’s reception in San Francisco. With his Starlink satellite internet he can even influence the war in Ukraine.

However, the aforementioned tweet could cost Musk a lot of money. IBM has already canceled $1 million worth of ads on X as a result. Prominent Jewish figures are calling on companies like Disney, Apple and Amazon to follow IBM’s example. “None of this comes as a surprise,” they said in a statement. “Musk has been spreading anti-Semitism for years. The only surprise is that the tech companies are still doing business with him.”

Not only anti-Semitism, but also political violence in general is increasing. A San Francisco court just found David DePape guilty. About a year ago, he attacked Nancy Pelosi’s husband with a hammer and seriously injured him. He confessed that the motive for his crime was right-wing extremist conspiracy theories.

The attack on 83-year-old Paul Pelosi was not condemned by Republicans. On the contrary: Donald Trump joked about it several times, calling the former Speaker of the House of Representatives a “crazy weirdo.” In the relevant right-wing extremist forums it was even claimed that it was not a political attack, but a homosexual relationship crime. Trump implicitly confirmed this with the comment “Who knows what happened there?”

Trump is widely seen as the main driver of the increasing violence. Not only does his rhetoric increasingly resemble the inflammatory speeches of Hitler and Mussolini – he recently described his political opponents as ‘vermin’ – he also explicitly calls for ‘revenge’ and ‘retaliation’ and openly declares that he will become all his enemies . him in jail if he wins the election.

Anti-Semitism from the richest man in the world, increasing political violence and an ex-president who is increasingly taking on fascist traits: the US – and thus the entire Western world – is heading towards a dangerous year 2024.