Elon Musk, the owner of platform X, stated in Kraków on Monday, during a discussion with American commentator Ben Shapiro about anti-Semitism, that he was previously naive to believe it could not resurface.
“In my bubble, there was virtually no such phenomenon,” he admitted. Musk highlighted that “if freedom of speech and social media existed during the times of Auschwitz, the Holocaust would have been impossible.”
Musk said he believes no one is born with hatred toward others and stressed the vital need for human interaction, evidenced by solitary confinement being the harshest prison punishment.
Addressing the Hamas attacks on Israel and the rising wave of anti-Semitism, Musk remarked that people hate others when they are subjected to some form of indoctrination.
“That’s why I think the most important thing is to fight such indoctrination,” he said.
In Kraków, Musk and Shapiro claimed the need to halt the indoctrination of hatred of Israel, particularly in the Gaza Strip. They said that anti-Semitic incidents at American universities were a sign that it could happen even in the U.S., including in “very diverse” environments.
Musk pointed out that independent audits showed significantly fewer anti-Semitic content on platform X compared to other services, especially TikTok.
The billionaire also spoke about the condition of contemporary media. “I believe there should be an organic rule in media that people decide what is most important in the media, not a group of editors,” he said. “There are probably about five editors-in-chief in the entire United States who decide what should be on the front pages of newspapers,” he added.
Musk appeared during the International Holocaust Remembrance Day events in Kraków and the former German Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz; he also attended a conference on anti-Semitism organized by the European Jewish Association (EJA).
He was invited to the symposium following accusations of anti-Semitism last fall when he agreed with an anonymous user on platform X who claimed Jewish communities promote “hatred against whites” and are responsible for bringing in “hordes of minorities flooding the country.”
Musk later admitted his statement was “one of the stupidest things” he had done. This post was condemned by the White House, and many major advertisers, including the Disney corporation, which announced a boycott of the platform. Following this controversy, Musk visited Israel, meeting with President Isaac Herzog and going to sites attacked by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7 last year.
