Elon Musk on Thursday proudly tweeted a photo of himself meeting China’s president, Xi Jinping – as the embattled X owner struggles to deal with yet more concerns about antisemitism.
Musk on Wednesday agreed with an antisemitic post on his platform, and then attempted to backtrack – insisting he did not support the genocide of Jewish people.
In further bad news, it emerged that his platform had paid $3,000 in ad revenue shares to a virulent antisemite, Hitler fan and Holocaust denier.
On Wednesday night, Musk put aside the increasing scandal to meet Xi at a reception after the APEC summit, in San Francisco.
The billionaire businessman told a reporter for Xinhua, Chinese state media, that he was looking forward to seeing Xi.
‘I’m looking forward to meeting – we met once briefly. I look forward to meeting again,’ he said.
Elon Musk on Wednesday evening met Xi Jinping, China’s president, in San Francisco
Many U.S. business leaders, including Apple’s Tim Cook (pictured), attended the $40,000 per-head soiree on the sidelines of the APEC Summit in San Francisco on Wednesday night. The dinner included remarks from Chinese President Xi Jinping
He said he was ‘very happy with our work in China,’ adding that he hoped ‘China and the United States can work together for regional prosperity of the world.’
Musk’s Tesla in 2018 became the first-ever foreign carmaker to be invited to set up a factory in China without having to answer to a Chinese partner, and now nearly 30 percent of all car sales in China are EVs, versus 7 percent in the United States.
Musk has made several trips to China – most recently in June – but it is not known when he met Xi. Bill Gates was granted a rare audience with Xi this summer, which analysts said likely rankled Musk, who is highly competitive with and critical of Gates.
Tesla China on Thursday said that Xi, in his meeting with Musk, ‘expressed support for Tesla’s development in China.’
The statement continued: ‘Musk expressed his gratitude and appreciated the rapid development of China’s new energy vehicle industry.
‘This year marks Tesla’s tenth year of entering the Chinese market. The Tesla Shanghai Gigafactory, which was completed and put into production in 2019, has become Tesla’s important global production base and export center.’
The statement continued with a declaration that Tesla was ‘honored to participate in the rapid development of China’s new energy vehicle industry’.
It concluded: ‘We will continue to work hard in China and look forward to developing together with the industry in new energy vehicles, energy storage, artificial intelligence and other fields.’
After meeting Xi, Musk did not stay for the $40,000-a-head dinner at the Hyatt Regency, hosted by Joe Biden in Xi’s honor.
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff also skipped the dinner, as did executives from Pfizer, Nike and FedEx – but Apple’s Tim Cook and the executive vice president of Boeing, Stanley Deal, stayed for the full event.
Musk’s meeting on Wednesday was overshadowed by the row about his support for antisemitic remarks.
A watchdog, Media Matters for America, also dug out claims that a Holocaust denier going by the handle ‘@bambkb’ had made $3,000 from his rhetoric on X.
Musk reacted angrily to the expose, tweeting on Thursday night: ‘Media Matters is an evil organization.’
Media Matters said that @bambkb – whose real identity is unknown, but who has almost 100,000 followers and tweets under the name ‘Kevin – WE THE PEOPLE- DAD’ – had tweeted a deluge of pro-Hitler content.
Musk sparked the firestorm on Wednesday by responding to a man who posted a screed on X criticizing a Foundation to Combat Anti-Semitism campaign video.
In the video, a father is seen talking to his son about the online hatred the son has spewed, and calling him out for his rhetoric.
The X user dismissed the video, writing: ‘Jewish communties (sic) have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.
‘I’m deeply disinterested in giving the tiniest s*** now about western Jewish populations coming to the disturbing realization that those hordes of minorities that support flooding their country don’t exactly like them too much.
‘You want truth said to your face, there it is.’
Musk, who has 163 million followers, replied: ‘You have said the actual truth.’
Elon Musk, pictured on November 2 speaking to British prime minister Rishi Sunak, said the online commentator accusing Jewish people of hating white people was speaking ‘actual truth’
Pro-Palestine protesters are seen in London on November 15
Demonstrators demanding the U.S. government call for a ceasefire are pictured on November 15 in New York City
DailyMail.com has approached Musk for comment, and received in reply: ‘Busy now, please check back later.’
He then, two hours later, wrote: ”decolonization’ necessarily implies a Jewish genocide, thus it is unacceptable to any reasonable person.’
Musk, who has been strongly criticized by the Anti-Defamation League and Israel’s Foreign Ministry for his past remarks, then attacked the ADL, accusing them of racism.
‘And, at the risk of being repetitive, I am deeply offended by ADL’s messaging and any other groups who push de facto anti-white racism or anti-Asian racism or racism of any kind,’ he said.
‘I’m sick of it. Stop now.’
A pro-Palestine protester is seen in San Francisco on Tuesday, as the APEC summit began
Musk has a long history of toying with dog-whistle rhetoric about Jewish people, in particular George Soros, who enraged him in May by selling his Tesla stock.
He has also angered people with his response to the Israel-Hamas war.
In the days after the October 7 Hamas terror attack, Musk was forced to delete a tweet which recommended an anti-Semitic account and a promoter of debunked videos as reliable sources of information about the attack on Israel.
The owner of X, formerly Twitter, faced a furious backlash after telling his 159 million followers that the accounts @WarMonitors and @sentdefender were ‘good’ for ‘following the war in real time’.
Followers were quick to point out that @WarMonitors has repeatedly used ‘jew’ as a term of abuse on the platform, telling New York supermarket boss Avi Kaner to ‘mind your own business, jew’.
‘The guy Musk recommends for information on the Israel-Hamas escalation is an anti-Semitic account with a history of spreading misinformation,’ wrote Sam Sokol of Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
On Halloween, Musk appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast and repeated his long-running criticism of the 93-year-old billionaire financier, who has for decades backed progressive causes.
Soros, born in Budapest, survived the Nazi occupation of Hungary and moved first to Britain, then the United States, where he began his hugely-influential philanthropy.
‘He is I believe the top contributor to the Democratic party,’ Musk told Rogan. ‘The second one was Sam Bankman-Fried.
‘And Soros, he had a very difficult upbringing.
‘In my opinion, he fundamentally hates humanity. That’s my opinion.’
Musk said that he was deeply opposed to Soros’ work backing progressive district attorneys, who pursued policies he saw as soft on crime.
‘He’s doing things that erode the fabric of civilization – getting DAs elected who refuse to prosecute crime,’ said Musk.
‘That’s part of the problem in San Francisco, and LA, and a bunch of other cities.
‘So why would you do that?’
Rogan asked: ‘Is it humanity, or just the United States?’
Musk said it was worldwide.
‘He’s pushing things in other countries as well,’ Musk said.
Elon Musk on Tuesday appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast, smoking a cigar and drinking what looked to be whisky
Joe Rogan appeared in drag for the Halloween podcast recording
George Soros, 93, has angered Elon Musk with his progressive policies
Musk told Rogan that he thought Soros was ‘basically a bit senile at this point’ – in June, Soros handed control of the Open Society Foundations and the rest of his $25 billion empire to his 37-year-old son, Alex.
The foundation directs about $1.5 billion a year to groups such as those backing human rights around the world and helping build democracies. Alex Soros said he intends to broaden the foundation’s priorities to include voting and abortion rights as well as gender equity.
Musk said that the elder Soros had been ‘very smart’ in using his money to achieve his goals.
‘He’s very good at arbitrage – famously he shorted the British pound,’ explained Musk. ‘That’s how I think he made his first money.
Arbitrage is spotting value for money that other people don’t see.
‘And one of the things he noticed is that the value for money in local races is much higher than it is in national races.
‘The lowest value for money is a presidential race. Then next lowest value for money is a senate race, then a congress.
‘And when you get to city and state district attorneys the value for money is extremely good.’
Musk said that Soros found he could help push policies he approved of through local officials.
‘Soros realized that you don’t have to actually change the laws,’ said Musk.
‘You just need to change how they are enforced.
‘If nobody chooses to enforce the laws, or the laws are differentially enforced, then its like changing the laws.’
Musk has previously compared Soros to X-Men supervillain Magneto – a character who manipulates the world and thinks mutants should be in charge, rather than humans.
He made the comments on Twitter in May, following the announcement that Soros’ investment fund had dumped all of their Tesla stock.
Elon Musk was interviewed on CNBC and was asked about his remarks about George Soros, giving a bizarre rambling reply
George Soros, a Hungarian-born Billionaire, heads the Open Society Foundation and is a Holocaust survivor. His foundation backs progressive politicians
Musk responded to Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, saying that the South African-born billionaire was not anti-Semitic, but his remarks were dangerous.
‘He’s arguably the most influential person on the planet controlling what’s essentially our public square. When he repeats conspiracy theories, that feeds the extremists,’ said Greenblatt.
Musk replied: ‘In fairness, I must concede that Joel has a good point and I will endeavor to be more thoughtful in the future.’
He later corrected to tweet to say ‘Jonathan’.
Musk continued: ‘Comic book analogies are obviously imperfect, to say the least.
‘Just because George Soros can bend metal using his mind doesn’t mean he’s Magneto!!
‘Anyway, my actual concern with Soros is that he has funded so many politicians & DAs who are soft even on violent crime, which has caused great damage to many cities imo.
‘Also, while I am very much in favor of expanding legal immigration, we must have some vetting of who comes in, so that we do not allow dangerous felons to prey upon innocent Americans.’
The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Musk’s tweet had resulted in a flood of conspiracy theories and the hashtag ‘The Jews’ to trend on the platform.
Researchers at Beam found in June that the volume of English-language antisemitic tweets has more than doubled since the company’s takeover by Musk in October 2022.
He has threatened to sue anti-hate organization the Anti-Defamation League for defamation after it criticized him for allowing anti-Semitic content online, but insists he is ‘against antisemitism of any kind’.
In September, Musk swerved the topic of antisemitism when asked during an interview with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister.
Musk would not address the subject, other than saying he is ‘obviously against’ it, and spoke more generally about ‘hate speech’ instead.
Netanyahu previously came to Musk’s defense when he was accused of repeating discriminatory tropes about Jewish financier George Soros, and he introduced the subject by reiterating his belief that the Tesla boss does not have anti-Jewish views.
Elon Musk declined to address anti-Semitism on X when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu broached the subject during their live-streamed discussion
A huge crowd of protesters gathered in San Francisco’s Union Square close to where Musk and Netanyahu were meeting to demonstrate their opposition to his reforms – and to Musk giving him a platform
‘I know of your opposition to anti-Semitism,’ the 73-year-old Israeli leader told Musk during their X discussion.
‘All I can say is I hope you can find within the confines of the First Amendment the ability to stop not only antisemitism or roll it back as best you can, but any collective hatred of a people that anti-Semitism represents.’
‘Obviously I’m against anti-Semitism,’ Musk replied. ‘I’m anti really anything that promotes hate and conflict, and I’m in favor that which helps society and takes us to a better future for humanity collectively.’
But the SpaceX boss didn’t elaborate or defend his controversial statements about Soros, including comparing him to X-Men supervillain Magneto – a character who manipulates the world and thinks mutants should be in charge rather than humans.
Speaking about hate speech generally on X, he said: ‘It’s important to bear in mind that there are 550 million monthly users, now maybe going to 600 million monthly users.
‘On any given day there’s on the order of 100 to 200 million posts to the system. This is a lot of material. Some of those are going to be bad.
‘You can’t police it in advance, but you can say after the fact ‘oh it’s getting reported as hate speech’.
‘We’re not going to promote speech because that’s probably not what people want to hear.’