By now, it is virtually a rite of passage for the more colorful side of Elon Musk's persona to emerge on the weekends. Right on cue, the world's richest person has now sounded a clarion call against one of the biggest Jewish advocacy groups, blaming the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) for erasing "half the value" of X.
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 … oh the irony!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 4, 2023
Today's saga began when Elon Musk announced his intention to file a defamation lawsuit against the ADL.
Interesting.
In our case, they would potentially be on the hook for destroying half the value of the company, so roughly $22 billion.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 4, 2023
In another tweet, Musk accused the ADL of wiping as much as $22 billion off X.
As we noted in an earlier post, 37 of the top 100 advertisers of the pre-Musk era refused to spend a single dime on X in the first quarter of 2023, and another 24 advertisers in this list curtailed their ad spend on the platform by around 80 percent. The advertisers justified this hiatus as a necessary step to examine X's content moderation policy under the auspices of Elon Musk.
Based on what we’ve heard from advertisers, ADL seems to be responsible for most of our revenue loss.
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…
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 4, 2023
Nonetheless, most of these big-time advertisers were able to resume their activity on X by Q2. Today, Elon Musk provided some much-needed context behind these extraordinary moves, identifying the ADL as the primary catalyst for orchestrating an advertiser-led boycott of X, thereby wiping significant value from the platform. The CEO of Tesla believes that the ADL has been responsible for destroying anywhere between $4 billion and $22 billion from X's value.
Advertisers avoid controversy, so all that is needed for ADL to crush our US & European ad revenue is to make unfounded accusations. They have much less power in Asia, so our ad revenue there is still strong.
This “controversy” causes advertisers to “pause”, but that pause is…
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 4, 2023
While explaining the ADL's alleged modus operandi, Elon Musk rightly asserted that advertisers seek to avoid controversy, which is the only logical outcome once the ADL comes out with a fiery condemnation of a particular entity.
Interesting documentaryhttps://t.co/W1tAOdEaqm
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 5, 2023
In classic Musk-style, the CEO of Tesla also shared an NPR documentary that details the alleged myriad of ways that the ADL has sought to weaponize its voice.
Blaming the ADL and really by extension Jews worldwide for destroying the value of this platform is quite the take….$TSLA https://t.co/ORdO2JXu46
— Suspected Saboteur (@ShortingIsFun) September 4, 2023
And, of course, the reaction has been swift and vicious.
This is not the first time that Elon Musk has invited the wrath of the Jewish advocacy groups. The world's richest person faces stringent criticism after his decision to unban the X account of Ye (Kanye West) - a known anti-semite.
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