Jewish lobby group ends feud with Elon Musk

The billionaire had threatened to sue the ADL for scaring advertisers off his platform

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has agreed to resume advertising on X (formerly Twitter), the platform it once denounced as a haven for hate speech, signaling an end to its dispute with owner Elon Musk. The lobby group announced the decision in a statement released on Wednesday. 

“We appreciate X’s stated intent over the last few weeks to address anti-Semitism and hate on the platform,” the Jewish advocacy group said, calling X’s moves “useful.” 

While stressing that “more needs to be done,” the group said it was prepared to resume advertising on X, as it had before feuding with Musk, “to bring our important message on fighting hate to X and its users.”

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Last month, Musk threatened to sue the ADL for defamation over what he insisted were bogus allegations of anti-Semitism and hatemongering. Musk insisted the organization was “trying to kill X” by scaring away its advertisers. In a thread posted to the platform, he explained that X’s ad revenue in the US had dropped by 60%, “primarily due to pressure on advertisers by @ADL.”

The group’s CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, met with X CEO Linda Yaccarino last month to restate his demands that the platform rein in the “rampant hate speech” that supposedly took over following Musk’s acquisition of the platform last October. Under the billionaire’s leadership, X allowed several prominent deplatformed users – most popular among them former US President Donald Trump – to regain access to their accounts and resume posting. The ADL has accused him of failing to enforce the platform’s existing content moderation policies ever since.

Despite Greenblatt’s complaints, X has actually stepped up its obedience to government censorship orders under Musk, fully complying with 83% of content takedown requests since his acquisition of the company, compared to 50% previously, according to Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet Society. 

The ADL has a long history of financially pressuring social media platforms to comply with its agenda. 

The ‘Stop Hate for Profit’ campaign it led against Facebook in 2020 encouraged big advertisers to divest from the platform until it tightened up its already-stringent restrictions on controversial content. The organization more recently partnered with PayPal to deplatform users accused of hate speech and extremism, cutting them off from the supporters’ donations.

Musk responded to the ADL’s apparent olive branch with a post thanking the group for “clarifying that you support advertising on X.”

“And also very much appreciate that ADL has bought advertising on X,” he added.