Former ADL Director Responds to Successor’s Defense of Elon Musk: ‘No Amount of Acrobatics Can Justify’ Agreeing With Anti-Semitic Tweet

zz/DPRF/STAR MAX/IPx 2023 & Sipa USA via AP

Abraham Foxman, the former director of the Anti-Defamation League, took a not-so-subtle jab at his successor, Jonathan Greenblatt, for defending Elon Musk.

Last week, Musk responded to an anti-Semitic tweet that claimed Jews advocate “hatred against whites” and want them replaced with “hordes of minorities.”

“You have said the actual truth,” Musk replied.

The backlash was swift.

“At a time when antisemitism is exploding in America and surging around the world, it is indisputably dangerous to use one’s influence to validate and promote antisemitic theories,” Greenblatt tweeted.

However, Greenblatt soon reversed course after Musk pledged to ban certain phrases on his X social media platform such as “decolonization” and “from the river to the sea.”

Some pro-Israel activists claim that in the context of the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine, these calls for genocide against Israelis.

“This is an important and welcome move by @elonmusk,” Greenblatt responded. “I appreciate this leadership in fighting hate.”

Many criticized Greenblatt over the remark, but he hit back at his critics.

“Totally baseless and wrong,” Greenblatt told Mediaite in The Interview, in which he noted he condemned Musk’s agreement with the anti-Semitic conspiracy tweet, but said he will praise Musk and others when they “get it right.”

On Tuesday night, Foxman took to Musk’s platform to ding Greenblatt.

“No amount of acrobatics can justify Musk’s frequent embraces of antisemitic themes and providing X as a-majo[r] platform for his antisemitism,” he wrote. “His recent criticism of Hamas and promise to ban some ugly anti-Israel expressions- do not vitiate his endorsement of antisemitism.”