The second-richest man in the world Elon Musk’s recent tirade against fellow billionaire George Soros relies on long-shared antisemitic tropes and could stoke further antisemitic attacks, the Anti-Defamation League said Tuesday.
George Soros delivers speaks at Davos 2020.
Musk fired a tweet Monday likening Soros to Magneto, the fictional comic book supervillain who is a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust like Soros, subsequently claiming Soros “hates humanity” and “wants to erode the very fabric of civilization.”
Musk’s posts echo historical stereotypes against Jews that are “distressing” and “dangerous,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt tweeted Tuesday.
The prominent social media attack on Soros “will embolden extremists who already contrive anti-Jewish conspiracies and have tried to attack Soros and Jewish communities as a result,” Greenblatt added.
Soros, a mega-donor to progressive and Democratic causes, faced an assassination attempt in 2018 when a pipe bomb was sent to his New York home, and has drawn the ire of mostly far-right figures, often drawing on problematic issues about Jews’ outsized influence on global politics and business.
Musk has yet to respond to allegations of his comments being antisemitic and did not immediately respond to an emailed inquiry.
Musk is worth $175 billion, the largest fortune of any American, while Soros is worth $6.7 billion, according to our latest estimates.
Anti-Jewish attacks accounted for 51% of all religiously motivated hate crimes and 9% of all hate crimes in the U.S. in 2021, according to the FBI. Jews make up about 2.4% of the American population.
Soros’ hedge fund disclosed Friday it sold all of its roughly $16 million stake in Tesla, which Musk leads as CEO.
This is a developing story and will be updated…
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