Elon Musk, facing criticism, warns of potential lawsuit against media watchdog

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, spoke with members of the media at the AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park in Bletchley, Britain on November 1, 2023. Musk faced backlash over his social media platform X’s promotion of antisemitic content, resulting in several large U.S. companies halting advertising on the site.

Liberal watchdog group Media Matters for America revealed that ads from IBM, Apple, and others were placed alongside content promoting Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party on X. Musk endorsed an antisemitic post that falsely claimed Jewish community members were stoking hatred against white people, sparking sharp condemnation.

Musk took to X to threaten a lawsuit against Media Matters and all those who colluded in the attack on his company. Numerous companies, including IBM, Disney, and Apple, suspended ads, prompting Musk to assert that X had been misrepresented in an attempt to undermine freedom of speech and mislead advertisers.

Media Matters accused Musk of being a “bully” and threatened to win if sued, citing Musk’s past threats of legal action against the Anti-Defamation League and allegations of reduced content moderation on X resulting in a rise in hate speech.

In a separate development, Tesla, led by Musk, has been hit by several lawsuits alleging rampant racial or sexual harassment of workers. Antisemitic incidents in the United States and worldwide have been on the rise, with a nearly 400% increase following the outbreak of war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas on October 7, according to the ADL.

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