Israeli leader Netanyahu asks Elon Musk to condemn antisemitism on X
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday pressed tech billionaire Elon Musk to condemn antisemitism and find a way to combat it on his social media platform X as the pair met at a Tesla factory in Fremont., Calif.
“I hope you can find within the confines of the First Amendment the ability to not only stop antisemitism as best you can, but any collective hatred of the people that antisemitism represents,” Netanyahu urged Musk in the meeting, which was live-streamed on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. “I encourage you to find the balance. … It’s a tough one.”
Musk responded with a mild denunciation of antisemitism, while seeking to pivot the conversation to the importance of free speech and his efforts to combat bots on the site.
“I’m sort of against anything that promotes hate and conflict,” Musk said. He added that he was “in favor of that which furthers civilization and which ultimately leads us to become a space-faring civilization,” and that “we can’t do that if there’s a lot of infighting and hatred and negativity. So obviously I’m against antisemitism.”
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Netanyahu then pivoted to antisemitism, which seemed to make Musk uncomfortable. The pair agreed, however, on the importance of limiting the ability of bots to artificially spread hateful messages on the platform. Musk said he believes the best way to do that is to continue pushing X users to sign up for paid subscriptions and to prioritize the posts of those who do.
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