ADL Chief Praises Elon Musk Twitter Acquisition – Oddly, With Henry Ford Comparison

Anti-Defamation League chief Jonathan Greenblatt praised Tesla CEO Elon Musk for acquiring Twitter — oddly, by comparing him to known anti-Semite Henry Ford.

Ford was an odd choice for the ADL chief to use as a comparison, considering his well-documented history of anti-Semitism. For example, he wrote in 1920, “If fans wish to know the trouble with American baseball they have it in three words—too much Jew.”

Greenblatt told CNBC’s Squawk Box on Friday that he’s “hopeful [the deal] will go through.”

“Elon Musk is an amazing entrepreneur and an extraordinary innovator. He’s the Henry Ford of our time. And he’s taken on big, huge, complex tasks that no one thought could be solved like rocketry or mobility or solar,” he said.

“And to think what he can do with the public square, I mean, I certainly have some qualms about just a handful of companies controlling so much of the public debate, but I’m hopeful the regulators will give this a chance. I’m hopeful he’ll be able to apply his penchant for innovation to this company.”

The ADL has documented anti-Semitism on Twitter and earlier this year blasted the company for not enforcing its policy on anti-Semitism.

On Tuesday, Twitter said it will go ahead and close the $44 billion deal it had with Musk to acquire the social media company.

Musk initially struck the deal in April to buy Twitter at $54.20 a share. Bloomberg first reported on Tuesday that Musk was moving forward with his offer to acquire Twitter at the full price he agreed to.

Musk then claimed that Twitter was not meeting the requirements of the deal and moved to terminate the agreement over what he said was a “breach” of the terms, specifically with how the board had represented the problem with bot accounts and the transparency related to that, which he said impacted the value of the company.

Twitter took him to court, accusing him of breaking the terms of the acquisition agreement, where the case is pending.

The case is still set to go to trial on Oct. 17.

Watch above via CNBC.