ADL Chief Jonathan Greenblatt Defends Praise of Elon Musk and Criticizes Media in Wide-Ranging Interview

Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt has been a ubiquitous presence on cable news since the Hamas terror attack of Oct. 7, warning of the alarming spike in anti-Semitism across the world that followed the attack and Israel’s subsequent war in Gaza.

Greenblatt joined The Interview this week to discuss the work of the ADL, which is the oldest anti-discrimination group in the United States, the rise of anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim hate in the United States, and media coverage of the current war. He also addressed his rocky relationship with Elon Musk, President Joe Biden’s polling slump, as well as his claim that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism.

Greenblatt addressed Musk’s apparent embrace of an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory last week, which fueled the flight of blue chip advertisers from his platform X, formerly Twitter.

“We are living in perilous times,” Greenblatt said. “And that’s why it was so deeply problematic and dangerous when the owner of X validated an awful anti-Semitic conspiracy theory to his 160 million followers or so.”

Greenblatt said he spoke privately with Musk on Friday, just days after that post. The same day, Musk announced that terms such as “decolonization” or “from the river to the sea” would be banned from X, claiming they “imply genocide.”

Mediaite asked Greenblatt about the criticism he faced for applauding Musk’s “leadership in fighting hate” over the announcement. One critic, New Yorker writer Isaac Chotiner, wrote on X: “The most prominent organization fighting anti-Semitism in America will commend your ‘leadership in fighting hate’ 24 hours after you endorse vile neo-Nazi anti-Semitism…if you take a strong stand against critics of Israel.”

“Totally baseless and wrong,” Greenblatt replied, noting he initially condemned Musk’s embrace of the anti-Semitic conspiracy theory, and would applaud Musk and other tech leaders when they “get it right.”

“I don’t think one negates the other. I don’t want to give you the wrong impression. I’m not saying, ‘Oh, he’s off the hook because he said this on Friday’ or ‘Oh, he’ll always be bad because he said this on Wednesday.’ It’s my job to call it as I see it,” Greenblatt said.

He also explained his outspoken criticisms of the media’s coverage of the war. Last month, he called out MSNBC during an appearance on Morning Joe, accusing the network of parroting Hamas propaganda. On The Interview, Greenblatt defended the hosts of Morning Joe but said others on the network, and even commentators on CNN, were “sort of lauding Hamas for what they accomplished.”

As evidence of that claim, Greenblatt pointed to a comment from a CNN journalist reporting from Tel Aviv.

During a live report from CNN International anchor Becky Anderson last month, she described the advances by Hamas fighters into Israel as significant: “I spoke to the IDF spokesman earlier on who said the IDF is still working to secure and protect 20 communities around that Gaza border, which, you know, I echo your words, it cannot be understated or underscores just how spectacular this incursion by Hamas militants have been.”

Greenblatt objected to that framing in the next segment, scolding CNN and Anderson for her language: “You need to tell Becky Anderson to stop using words like ‘spectacular’, to describe the terror organization of Hamas. Stop saying they made ‘great gains’, ‘spectacular gains.'”

Greenblatt told Mediaite he has spoken to major media outlets about how they are covering the war. “I think things have gotten a lot better since I made those comments,” he said.

“Let’s acknowledge that in the fog of war it’s never necessarily easy,” he said. “Reporting can be hard.”

Greenblatt also addressed Biden’s sinking poll numbers among Democrats and particularly younger voters since Oct. 7.

“I would say that, number one, the images from Gaza are wrenching. They’re heartbreaking. They’re heartbreaking. I mean, every Palestinian life, every civilian who gets killed is a tragedy,” he said.

“Considering how young people intake information and considering what a humanitarian disaster it is in Gaza,” he said, “I’m not surprised that people are deeply upset about it. I’m deeply upset about it. If you are a living, breathing, sentient person and you’re not upset about it, I think you’ve got to look in the mirror.”

Mediaite also pressed Greenblatt on his claim that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism. In a recent appearance on CNN, Greenblatt stated: “There is no argument anymore that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism, that is as plain as day.”

That claim is a controversial one, even within the ADL, and some say it is used to silence critics of Israel by casting them as bigots. As many have pointed out in response to Greenblatt, there are plenty of Palestinians, Israelis and Jews alike who are anti-Zionist but hardly anti-Semitic.

Yair Rosenberg wrote recently in The Atlantic that it is “absurd to expect Palestinians to embrace Zionism, which they experienced as the displacement of their people and the dispossession of their homeland. Likewise, principled secular anti-nationalists who oppose all sectarian and ethnic states, ultra-Orthodox Jews who reject a return to the Jewish homeland before the arrival of the Messiah, and Jewish progressives who focus on Israel’s sins because they are particularly upset by how the country appears to act in their name are also not anti-Semites.”

Watch Greenblatt’s response to those criticisms above, and subscribe to The Interview on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.