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X to Sue ADL, Musk Says He Will Release Communication Records With The Organization

'Our U.S. Advertising Revenue Is Still Down 60% Primarily Due To Pressure On Advertisers By ADL'

Published: September 05, 2023
  |   By Christopher Bertman

Tech mogul and X owner Elon Musk said his social media platform has “no choice” but to file a defamation suit against the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

The ADL is an international organization that seeks to combat “antisemitism,” “extremism,” and “bigotry,” along with protecting “democracy,” according to their website.

In a series of posts from the tech mogul on Sunday, Musk detailed alleged efforts by the ADL to take down X by dissuading advertisers from promoting on the platform by claiming the platform engages in anti-semitism.

“To clear our platform’s name on the matter of anti-semitism, it looks like we have no choice but to file a defamation lawsuit against the Anti-Defamation League,” Musk wrote in an X post.

“Oh the irony!”

Earlier Sunday, Musk clarified he was pro-free speech, though he was “against anti-semitism of any kind.”

 

Musk elaborated in another post claiming the ADL had been trying to “kill” X, previously Twitter, by “falsely accusing” the platform and the tech mogul specifically of “being anti-semitic.”

Musk also claimed the platform’s ad revenue was down by 60% “primarily due to pressure on advertisers by the ADL.”

“That’s what advertisers tell us,” Musk continued. “So they almost succeeded in killing X/Twitter!”

 

“If this continues, we will have no choice but to file a defamation suit against, ironically, the “Anti-Defamation” League,” he said. “If they lose the defamation suit, we will insist that they drop the the “anti” part of their name, since obviously …”

Political commentator Mike Cernovich suggested “Democrat groups” purchase bots to “falsely smear people via association” before asking the tech mogul how many anti-semitic accounts were real compared to fake accounts “operated by the DNC to create fear and division.”

Musk responded that it was impossible to tell if unverified accounts were a small or large number of real people, claiming “sophisticated bots are virtually indistinguishable from humans.”

“With unverified accounts, there is also no way to tell if the organization complaining was somehow complicit in creating the very thing they complain about!” Musk followed up.

Alex Lorusso, executive producer of The Benny Show, shared a screenshot of a 2000 article from The Jewish News Of Northern California detailing a previous defamation lawsuit ruled against the ADL for $10.5 million.

Musk responded to Lorusso, noting the ADL would be “on the hook” for “destroying half the value of the company,” totaling about $22 billion from Musk’s October 2022 acquisition.

“Based on what we’ve heard from advertisers, ADL seems to be responsible for most of our revenue loss,” Musk wrote in another post. “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,” he added:

Advertisers avoid controversy, so all that is needed for ADL to crush our US & European ad revenue is to make unfounded accusations. They have much less power in Asia, so our ad revenue there is still strong. 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. 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.

Later, Musk shared a Politico article detailing the ADL’s efforts to dictate censorship on Facebook.

In another post, Lorusso noted ADL’s CEO Jonathan Greenblatt had referred to former Fox News host Tucker Carlson as an “obvious antisemite” and had demanded his removal from the platform.

Musk responded, saying Carlson was welcome to join X’s lawsuit.

Libs of TikTok suggested Musk release all communications with the ADL to provide transparency with the organization along with others similar to the ADL to censor certain accounts.

“Great point,” Musk responded. “A giant data dump would clear the air.”

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