‘Blaming the Jews’: ADL Chief Slams Elon Musk on Morning Joe, Says His Claims Are ‘Just Wrong’
Anti-Defamation League (ADL) CEO Jonathan Greenblatt tore into Twitter/X owner Elon Musk for essentially “blaming the Jews” for his company’s problems.
Musk blamed the ADL for his company’s loss of ad revenues in a rant threatening a lawsuit against the group, which he concluded by writing “They almost succeeded in killing X/Twitter! If they lose the defamation suit, we will insist that they drop the ‘anti’ part of their name.”
On Wednesday morning’s edition of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Greenblatt pushed back on Musk, and ripped him for “classic scapegoating” of Jews for his own company’s failures:
WILLIE GEIST: Let’s talk a little bit about the real world impact of this, of having the richest man on the planet cheering along”Ban the ADL.” He was like doing a lot of that stuff. He was responding to it, fanning the flames, blaming you guys for the failure of the of the company he bought. And also to have a former president of United States, a man who wants to be president again, at least creating space for this, if not saying it explicitly. What are the real world implications of that? What have you seen change in the last few years?
JONATHAN GREENBLATT: We know this because we track it and extremists feel emboldened. It’s interesting this is happening while we have these sentences being handed down January 6. But the reality is QAnon enthusiasts, conspiracy theorists, hardened anti-Semites. All of these types of people who are under rocks before are now out in the open. And so, again, when you have Nazis chanting, “ban the ADL,” when you have SWATtings of synagogues, when you have bomb threats against Jewish institutions and the Jewish holidays of Rosh Hashanah are just a few weeks away. That’s why the community is on edge. And that’s why ADL will not shrink. We will not hesitate. We will be ferocious in fighting hate and the empty threats and frivolous lawsuits. They don’t scare us. And, you know, like you said, Elon Musk truly is the wealthiest man in the world. He’s one of the most brilliant innovators of our time. He controls the most powerful media platforms on the planet. We’re just a small nonprofit. So blaming the Jews, if you will, that’s classic scapegoating. It’s not what happened here. But we won’t stop fighting all forms of hate, because that’s what we do.
WILLIE GEIST: Certainly, given some cover, as you say, these people come out of the shadows again and speaking more loudly. And we’ve seen violence because of it.
Watch above via MSNBC’s Morning Joe.
