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It was the newest salvo in a marketing campaign by Musk to counter allegations of rampant antisemitism on his platform — together with his personal amplification of antisemitic tropes — by positioning himself as a staunch supporter of the Jewish state. However the strikes drew blended reactions from Jewish organizations, and to this point there are few indications that they’re profitable again advertisers.
If something, “he’s digging himself deeper and deeper into the bottom,” mentioned Ruben Schreurs, chief technique officer on the advertising consultancy Ebiquity.
Simply over a 12 months after Musk acquired Twitter, pledging to make it a haven free of charge speech and subsequently shedding a lot of its workforce, its promoting enterprise is on the ropes. Reviews of spiking hate speech on the platform; Musk’s choice to prioritize the posts of paying subscribers over these of journalists and media shops; and his personal trollish, typically incendiary posts have sparked advertiser boycotts, whereas different manufacturers and influential customers backed away. These embody The Washington Submit, which mentioned Tuesday that it had paused promoting on X.
This month, a report by the left-leaning media watchdog Media Issues discovered pro-Nazi tweets operating subsequent to main manufacturers’ advertisements on X. That got here on the heels of Musk personally endorsing a tweet that echoed a baseless antisemitic accusation in style with white nationalists.
The end result was a backlash through which a few of X’s largest remaining advertisers, together with IBM, Apple and Disney, introduced that they’d pause their spending on the location. Musk responded by suing Media Issues, alleging defamation — and by dramatically ramping up his public help of Israel.
On Nov. 17, because the listing of firms pulling their advertisements grew, Musk tweeted that sure phrases related to requires Palestinian liberation from Israel, together with “decolonization” and “from the river to the ocean,” essentially suggest “genocide” and that anybody utilizing them on X could be suspended. It was a pointy departure from his ordinary rhetoric concerning the significance of tolerating objectionable speech.
At the least one outstanding Jewish chief appeared mollified. Jonathan Greenblatt, president of the Anti-Defamation League, which had sparred with Musk prior to now, referred to as the crackdown “vital and welcome” and praised Musk’s “management in preventing hate.”
Subsequent, Musk turned to a now-familiar ally in Netanyahu. Twice earlier than, Musk has spoken with Netanyahu on the peak of controversies over his dalliances with antisemitism — as soon as in June after tweets concerning the Jewish financier George Soros, and once more in September amid Musk’s feud with the ADL. The pair had broadcast their September dialog utilizing X’s dwell audio characteristic, referred to as Areas, and so they did the identical this week in Israel.
The alliance seems to have paid off for Netanyahu already, as Musk agreed in “precept” to offer the Israeli authorities management over using Starlink web service in Gaza. Whereas the service could possibly be vital to Palestinian assist efforts crippled by widespread communication blackouts, Israeli leaders worry that it might be utilized by Hamas militants.
However Musk’s hopes that folks would get the message that he’s not an antisemite in spite of everything — “Actions communicate louder than phrases,” he tweeted — remained largely unfulfilled.
“We’re glad Elon Musk went to Israel, and we encourage each chief to go to to attempt to grasp the horrific ache inflicted by Hamas towards the Jewish state and, in flip, towards the Jewish individuals,” Ted Deutch, CEO of the American Jewish Committee, mentioned in an emailed assertion to The Submit. “And but, as not too long ago as final week, we have been outraged by Musk’s amplification of antisemitic content material on X. His expertise in Israel ought to trigger him to take away antisemitic content material on X slightly than advertise. We’ll see.”
Elad Nehorai, a left-leaning commentator who has helped to prepare a marketing campaign by rabbis and different Jewish leaders to name out antisemitism on X, noticed Musk’s conferences with Netanyahu as a “symbiotic relationship, the place they each profit from one another.” Musk will get “a protect towards antisemitism accusations,” whereas Netanyahu will get the help of the world’s richest man, and certainly one of its strongest, because of his possession of Starlink.
However Nehorai mentioned Musk’s help of Israel shouldn’t absolve him of duty for failing to average antisemitism on X, or for Musk’s personal antisemitic tweets. “This has been a traditional transfer by Republicans and the fitting for a very long time: The second they get accused of antisemitism, they state their help of Israel,” he mentioned.
Nehorai added that some antisemites and white nationalists see help of a Jewish state as according to their very own curiosity in marginalizing Jews and different minorities domestically. The tweet that Musk agreed with this month was making the case that “western Jewish populations” are responsible for supporting “hordes of minorities” who’re “flooding their nation” and selling “hatred towards whites.”
It’s too quickly to say for certain whether or not Musk’s Israel go to will assist his trigger with advertisers, mentioned Schreurs of Ebiquity, which he mentioned consults with greater than 70 of the 100 largest promoting spenders globally. If his purpose was to place to relaxation their considerations about spending on X, Schreurs added, it may have the other impact.
“What manufacturers in any respect prices attempt to keep away from typically is overly politicized content material,” he mentioned. “What he’s doing now with this ample present of reverence to Netanyahu and help for his regime is definitely additional politicizing the platform.”
Among the many main world manufacturers that Ebiquity works with, Schreurs mentioned he’s not conscious of a single one which’s nonetheless promoting on X.
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