In deleted post about war, Elon Musk promoted accounts known for antisemitism and disinformation
A Christian group is calling on Elon Musk to stop attacking the ADL. Photo by Carina Johansen/NTB/AFP via Getty Images
By Sam Lin-Sommer October 9, 2023
Elon Musk, the owner of the social media platform X, took to the site this weekend to recommend that viewers consult two accounts known for spreading misinformation and antisemitism for information about Israel’s war with Hamas after the militant group launched a devastating Saturday strike.
“For following the war in real-time, @WarMonitors & @sentdefender are good,” Musk wrote on Sunday morning, in a tweet that he has since deleted.
According to The Washington Post, Musk’s tweet was viewed 11 million times over the course of 3 hours before Musk deleted it.
Later that day, CNN anchor Jake Tapper shared a screenshot of Musk’s tweet, alongside a screenshot of a tweet in which @WarMonitors wrote “mind your own business, jew” under another user’s post. Tapper commented, “Elon Musk lauds this bigot as a good source of information, part Infiniti.”
The account, which bills itself as a breaking news and geopolitics account, has posted that “the overwhelming majority of people in the media and banks are zi0nists (not jews, alot of jews aren’t zionists)” in a thread in which they thanked Kanye West, who had recently made a string of public antisemitic comments himself, “for being the only man with influence to stand up and talk about the injustices going on.”
The other account that Musk recommended, @sentdefender, has also been known for making false claims about armed conflict and politics. Last May, the account spread a false claim about an explosion near the Pentagon based on a doctored image. After it did so, the S&P 500 to dropped by 0.3%; it rebounded after the photo was revealed to be fake.
Emerson T. Brooking, a Senior Research Fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, called it an “absolutely poisonous account,” accusing it of “regularly posting wrong and unverifiable things (‘sources say’). inserting random editorialization and trying to juice its paid subscriber count. 500k followers with most people retweeting it uncritically.”
Since Musk took over X (then known as Twitter) last year, the website has seen a surge in antisemitic posts, according to the Anti-Defamation league. And since war broke out on Saturday, the platform has seen a flood of disinformation about the conflict, including footage from video games and Algerian fireworks celebrations passed off to look like genuine images of the fighting.
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