We do not come away indifferent from a visit to the Nazi extermination camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau. What’s more, alongside a survivor. Elon Musk is no exception. Visibly moved, aware of the gravity of the moment, the American billionaire was somewhat searching for his words at the start of the interview he gave, a few hours later, in Krakow, during a symposium on the rise of anti-Semitism organized by the European Jewish Association (AJE), Monday January 22. “It’s deeply sad and tragic that humans can do this to other humans,” the Tesla and SpaceX owner said.
This visit inspired another thought from the man who bought the social network Twitter for $44 billion before renaming it X: “If there had been social media, it would not have been possible to hide [la Shoah]just as if there had been freedom of expression.” He then indicated that “the first thing the Nazis did when they arrived [au pouvoir] was to shut down all the press.” Notwithstanding the seriousness of the moment and its emotion, Elon Musk defended his controversial management of X.
For this, he was greatly helped by his interrogator of the day, the journalist Ben Shapiro, one of the stars of American conservatives with his daily podcast The Ben Shapiro Show and its news site, The Daily Wire. “I think the broadening of the conversation about X has been a great thing,” he said. A reference to the lifting, by Elon Musk, of a certain number of safeguards that previously existed on Twitter: suspended accounts have been reinstated; the blue “certified accounts” checkmarks were removed and then returned, but are now paid ; finally, the number of moderators has been drastically reduced.
Is this the best way to combat anti-Semitism? Elon Musk, who admitted to having been “naive” on this issue, praised the participatory program in place. “If someone says something wrong, especially on our platform, you can respond to it to make a correction,” he explained to his audience, saying he was satisfied with the system of “community notes, [derrière lequel il] “If someone tries to push things that are false, like Holocaust denial, they can be immediately corrected,” he explains.
Yet, the Wire news site, specializing in digital technology, recently noted that these “notes” do not fight disinformation as well as they should and can even, in certain cases, fuel it. For its part, the European Commission announced in mid-December the launch of a “formal investigation” targeting the social network for alleged breaches of European rules on content moderation and transparency. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), an American NGO fighting anti-Semitism, for its part denounced a worrying increase in anti-Semitic content on X following the massacre of more than a thousand Jews by Hamas on October 7.
Angry at the ADL, which he held responsible for the about-face of some of the advertisers on its platform, Elon Musk approved a tweet claiming that “Jewish communities advocate[aient] the exact type of dialectical hatred against white people that they claim to want [combattre contre elles-mêmes]”. A reaction which earned him a barrage of criticism. The White House accused him of “abjectly promoting anti-Semitic and racist hatred”. Elon Musk subsequently apologized for “one of the things the stupidest [qu’il ait faites sur X]”. This visit to Auschwitz, at the invitation of the president of the AJE, Rabbi Menachem Margolin, allows him to turn the page. “Two thirds of my friends are Jewish,” he assured.
Will the operation have further served the fight against anti-Semitism, which the AJE is trying to strengthen? Or will it have been especially useful to Elon Musk? Many European leaders spoke throughout the day, including former Swedish Prime Ministers Stefan Löfven and French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, who published an op-ed in L’Express to denounce “the unworthy summons of Israel to respond to accusations genocidal acts” with the war against Hamas which followed the massacres of October 7. Their interventions all received the sponsorship of Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial, located in Jerusalem. But not that of Elon Musk.