Tech entrepreneur Elon Musk tweeted Tuesday that the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) should “drop the A” from its name after it accused him of antisemitism for criticizing left-wing billionaire George Soros.
Soros, one of the most important political donors on the left, is technically Jewish, though he is not active in Jewish organizations — aside from radical groups like J Street, which opposes Israeli policies.
His role is very controversial: he has funded dozens of radical prosecutors nationwide, for example, who have pursued policies of “criminal justice reform” that have coincided with a shocking rise in violent crime in many American cities.
Musk had been involved in a Twitter debate about Soros’s role in funding radical prosecutors. At one point, Musk tweeted that Soros “hates humanity.” He also compared him to the fictional character Magneto, a villain in the X-Men comic book series who draws on his experiences as a Holocaust survivor to motivate his hatred for humanity. (Soros survived the Holocaust as a boy; he witnessed the confiscation of Jewish property.)
Musks’s comments triggered a wide range of responses — from antisemitic trolls who seize on Soros as the center of their Jewish conspiracy theories, to left-wing critics who accused him of fomenting antisemitism.
ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt criticized Musk, as the Times of Israel notes:
Musk’s tweet came after ADL’s CEO Jonathan Greenblatt criticized Musk’s remarks about Soros, marking the latest chapter in the roller-coaster relationship between the ADL and the Twitter CEO. When Musk was poised to buy the social media platform, Greenblatt praised him. But in the months since that acquisition, the ADL has been increasingly critical of Musk, accusing him of taking a lax attitude toward policing hate speech.
Another response came from an official at the Israeli foreign ministry, who faulted Musk for provoking antisemitic trolls and for doing nothing about the problem:
However, the Israeli government has itself been critical of Soros in the past. In 2018, then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Soros of funding efforts to stop Israel from deporting illegal immigrants.
Some pro-Israel Jewish commentators came to Musk’s defense:
As Breitbart News has noted, some attacks on Soros are indeed antisemitic — but some are legitimate, and false accusations of antisemitism attempt to silence that criticism.
The ADL was formed to protect Jews against discrimination, and also to advocate for civil rights in general.
The ADL has moved to the left in the years since Jonathan Greenblatt, a former Obama administration official, has led it.
In recent years, the ADL has pushed for more censorship on social media platforms, joining a broader left-wing campaign to push Facebook and other companies to block advertising from groups that it deems to be hateful.
Musk’s comment is not original; conservative radio host Mark Levin, a pro-Israel Jewish lawyer and author, has made a similar comment about the ADL’s recent tendency to defame people on the right.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.