Elon Musk Among the Anti-Semites
Category: News & Politics
Via: hallux • 11 months ago • 19 commentsBy: Yair Rosenberg - The Atlantic
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Last night, Elon Musk made two rookie social-media mistakes: He tweeted after 10 p.m., and he echoed paranoid anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists. “George Soros reminds me of Magneto,” he declared , likening the financier to the Marvel supervillain, both of them Jewish Holocaust survivors. In case the meaning was unclear, Musk quickly clarified to another user, “He wants to erode the very fabric of civilization. Soros hates humanity.”
Criticizing George Soros is not inherently anti-Semitic. He is one of the world’s richest men and most influential philanthropists, as well as the Democratic Party’s largest single donor , and his views undoubtedly warrant scrutiny and debate. But Musk was not taking issue with a particular statement or position put forward by Soros; he was presenting him as an avatar of evil. He painted Soros as a literal comic-book villain.
This is the language of anti-Semitism through the ages, which perpetually casts powerful Jewish actors as the embodiment of social and political ill. Rather than treat Jews like humans, who are fallible and often mistaken, this mindset refashions them into sinister superhumans who intentionally impose their malign designs on the masses. In recent years, Soros has been a particular target of this treatment, but any Jew or Jewish institution that accumulates some measure of wealth or status tends to attract it, whether the Rothschilds or the state of Israel. In such cases, legitimate criticism is overtaken by conspiracy; the issue is no longer the conduct of the Jewish actor but their very essence.
Musk echoing such a sensibility might seem surprising, but it was, in fact, inevitable. The Twitter magnate has spent months marinating among the site’s most conspiratorial characters. One of his first acts as Twitter’s owner was to share, then quietly delete, a bizarre anti-gay rumor about the October 2022 attack on Paul Pelosi, the husband of then–House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Since that time, Musk has repeatedly replied to and bantered with QAnon influencers , and suggested that the recent massacre in Allentown, Texas, by a reported white supremacist was actually “a psy-op.” As the BBC reporter Shayan Sardarizadeh put it , “These days, if you want to find the latest conspiracy theories trending on Twitter, the easiest thing to do is to check tweets Elon Musk replies to, you’ll find most of them.”
Seen in this context, Musk’s latest remarks are less a departure from past pronouncements than a continuation of them. Anti-Semitism is arguably the world’s oldest and most durable conspiracy theory. It presents Jews as the string-pulling puppet masters behind the world’s political, economic, and social problems. For those seeking simple solutions to life’s complexities, this outlook offers a ready-made explanation—and enemy. Anyone seeking a single source for society's travails may start with run-of-the mill conspiracy theories but will soon end up parroting anti-Jewish ideas. As I’ve written before , “Conspiracy theorists begin by rejecting mainstream explanations for social and political events in favor of supposedly suppressed knowledge and hidden hands. These individuals may not start out as anti-Semites. But anti-Semitism has a multi-thousand-year head start on their crooked conception of the world, and has produced centuries of material casting the Jews as its chief culprit. Once a person has convinced themselves that an invisible hand is manipulating the masses, they are just a couple of Google searches away from discovering that it belongs to an invisible Jew.”
It’s doubtful that Musk harbors personal animosity toward Jewish people. But he is a conspiracy theorist, and the arc of conspiracy is short and bends toward the Jews.
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The only thing I've noted about George Soros is that he looks like Rupert Murdoch's twin.
soros is the current villain du jour of the sub 80 IQ club.
When Mitt Romney ran for President, private equity fund management was a dirty word, after the 2008 financial crisis, hedge fund investors were dirty scum. But the man that started hedges funds early and took advantage of British pound crises by selling 10 billion pounds short is a hero.
One can depend on Musk to insert foot into mouth.
I will say that the ''Jewish Space Lasers'' are the real deal, so Musk should be careful if he's around Bernie Sanders.
Oh, no!
Now Democrats will have to treat Musk like they treat Ilhan Omar!
I hope people can just see the humor in my post and not think I am supporting anyone who makes anti-Semitic remarks.
Might be a conundrum for Democrats, though.
What to do, what to do?
If he has the temerity to run for office maybe they will censor him also.
Well, many things are possible.
Historically, the Democrats have supported Hamas and the militant Palestinians....who regularly put women, children, and old people in harm's way
The Left and the Democrats celebrate her. Looks like Elon will be included.
Just because Soros is a piece of garbage, and Musk rightly points it out doesn't make him and Antisemite, it only makes him observant and accurate.
The author agrees, so what is your actual point other than defaming who you have been conditioned to Herr Von Lemming?
I would flag your personal attack but it should stand to illustrate your lack In ability to actually dispute the point.
But it's an opportunity for the knuckle draggers on the left to show their hypocrisy and freak out over something one of their own does pretty regularly.
Hypocrisy should be one of the pillars of the democrat party, along with racism and envy of those more successful than them in every way.
I feel like this is a pretty weak example of anti-semitism.
Republicans and Democrats alike accuse each other of wanting to destroy America on pretty much a daily basis, but people don't think it's anti-semitism.
Elon Musk may well be an antisemite, but this is not very good evidence for it. There are too many examples of the same language being purely political. Just because a person accuses a guy who is Jewish of wanting to destroy whatever - or they compare him to a guy who is Jewish - that doesn't make the accuser or the accusation anti-semitic.
Mostly because it isn't at all anti-semitic, any more than criticisms of MGT are misogynistic.
Antisemitism has been icreasing in both Canada and the USA - afterall, people have to find SOMEONE to blame for their own shortcomings. IMO the media strongly cause the increase as well. Note that it would ALWAYS start with "Israel bombs..." or "Palestinian civilians killed by..." even though it was in retaliation for a Palestinian of Hamas or Islamic Jihad initial attack, or the fact that the civilians were used as shields for terrorists. Most people just skim headlines or read part of a story, but the media buries the truth far down in the story, if at all. My experience as Editor-in-Chief of my university newspaper taught me to recognize that dishonest trick.