Elon Musk has suggested that X (formerly Twitter) will sue the Anti-Defamation League in order to clear their name “on the matter of anti-semitism.”
Last week, a number of X users began using the hashtag #BanTheADL, calling for the anti-hate organization to be suspended from the platform. The hashtag campaign came in response to the ADL’s history of seeking to limit what they describe as “hate speech” on social media sites, which included the promotion of advertiser boycotts.
According to a number of reports, the ADL cost Facebook $60 million in market value in just two days in 2020 after the group suggested that Mark Zuckerberg was not doing enough to crack down on “hate speech.”
Irish commentator Keith Woods, who launched the hashtag, noted that “as soon as [Musk] took over Twitter, the ADL got to work ensuring his promise of a free speech site would not come to fruition.” Woods posted a screenshot of the ADL stating that Musk’s ownership of the site had put it on “deathwatch.” In a reply to Woods, Musk confirmed that the ADL had “tried very hard to strangle X.”
After the hashtag began to trend, Musk declared that X would have “no choice” but to “file a defamation lawsuit” against the ADL in order to “clear our platform’s name on the matter of anti-semitism.”
Musk added that they would “potentially be on the hook for destroying half the value of the company, so roughly $22 billion.”
“Based on what we’ve heard from advertisers, ADL seems to be responsible for most of our revenue loss,” Musk explained. “Giving them maximum benefit of the doubt, I don’t see any scenario where they’re responsible for less than 10% of the value destruction, so ~$4 billion. Document discovery of all communications between The ADL and advertisers will tell the full story.”
The Tesla billionaire noted that the ADL allegedly made “unfounded accusations” against the platform to scare off US and European advertisers from buying space on site.
“This ‘controversy’ causes advertisers to ‘pause.’ but that pause is permanent until ADL gives the green light, which they will not do without us agreeing to secretly suspend or shadowban any account they don’t like,” Musk revealed. “That is the relationship they’ve had with X/Twitter for many years. Presumably, they have that with all western search or social media orgs.”
Musk later noted that ex-Fox News star Tucker Carlson was “welcome to join” their suit, as previous comments from Jonathan Greenblatt, the head of the ADL, had labelled Carlson as an “anti-semite,” and demanded that he be removed from X.
