Moment Elon Musk refuses to address anti-Semitism on X when subject is broached by Israel’s PM Benjamin Netanyahu – before billionaire says he wants to charge ALL users to ‘stamp out bots’
- Musk said he is ‘obviously’ against anti-Semitism but did not elaborate
- He wants to charge all X users as ‘the only defense against vast armies of bots’
- Netanyahu claims Israel has ‘most active judicial court on the planet’ over reform
Elon Musk has declined to address anti-Semitism on X when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu broached the subject during their live-streamed discussion on Monday.
The duo spoke for almost an hour about the Twitter tsar’s plans to establish a paywall on the platform, Netanyahu’s controversial proposals to reform the judicial system in Israel, and artificial intelligence.
Their meeting in Silicon Valley, California, came amid escalating tensions between Musk and the Anti-Defamation League, which has accused him of being anti-Semitic.
However, Musk swerved the topic of anti-Semitism other than saying he is ‘obviously against’ it, and spoke more generally about ‘hate speech’ instead.
Netanyahu previously came to Musk’s defense after he was accused of repeating discriminatory tropes about Jewish financier George Soros, and he introduced the subject by reiterating his belief that the Tesla boss does not have anti-Jewish views.
Elon Musk has declined to address anti-Semitism on X when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu broached the subject during their live-streamed discussion
‘I know of your opposition to anti-Semitism,’ he told Musk during their X discussion.
‘All I can say is I hope you can find within the confines of the First Amendment the ability to stop not only antisemitism or roll it back as best you can, but any collective hatred of a people that anti-Semitism represents.’
‘Obviously I’m against anti-Semitism,’ Musk replied. ‘I’m anti really anything that promotes hate and conflict, and I’m in favor that which helps society and takes us to a better future for humanity collectively.’
But the SpaceX boss did not elaborate or defend his controversial statements about Soros, including comparing him to X-Men supervillain Magneto – a character who manipulates the world and thinks mutants should be in charge rather than humans.
Speaking about hate speech generally on X, he said: ‘It’s important to bear in mind that there are 550 million monthly users, now maybe going to 600 million monthly users.
‘On any given day there’s on the order of 100 to 200 million posts to the system. This is a lot of material. Some of those are going to be bad.
‘You can’t police it in advance, but you can say after the fact “oh it’s getting reported as hate speech”.
‘We’re not going to promote speech because that’s probably not what people want to hear.’
He also revealed he plans to charge X users, claiming it’s the only way to protect against bot accounts dominating the platform.
‘I’d say the single most important reason we’re moving towards having a small monthly payment for use of the X system is that it’s the only way I can think of to combat vast armies of bots,’ Musk said.
‘A bot costs a fraction of a penny, but if somebody has to pay a few dollars or something… you have to get a new payment method every time you have a new bot.
‘Prioritizing posts that are written by X premium subscribers, we’re actually going to come up with a lower tier pricing. We want it to be a small amount of money.
‘It’s a longer discussion, but in my view this is the only defense against vast armies of bots. As the AI gets really good it’s getting better at passing the captcha tests than humans.’
Netanyahu is also embroiled in his own domestic controversy over his move to radically revamp the country’s judicial system, which opponents say will push the country toward authoritarian rule.
Netanyahu wants to curtail the authority of the Supreme Court and give politicians greater powers over the selection of judges.