American billionaire Elon Musk visited the site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi extermination camp on Monday January 22 and was to speak about online anti-Semitism at a conference in southern Poland, a few weeks after having sparked a storm by relaying remarks relating to the conspiratorial and anti-Semitic sphere.

Elon Musk was due to speak during a round table at 4 p.m. (3 p.m. GMT), alongside American columnist Ben Shapiro, at a conference in Krakow.

This takes place shortly before the 79th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, on January 27, the date of Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Hours earlier, Elon Musk took a private tour of the site of the death camp built by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland between 1940 and 1945, where a million European Jews and more than 100,000 non-Jews were exterminated .

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The conference organized by the European Jewish Association (EJA) comes after Elon Musk responded in November to a post on told the exact truth", before apologizing.

The owner of Tesla and SpaceX has also been accused of allowing hate speech to proliferate on this same social network, since he bought this platform for $44 billion in October 2022.

Senior European politicians and Elon Musk met in Krakow "to discuss and find solutions to the astronomical rise in anti-Semitism in Europe", according to the EJA.

Elon Musk aspires “to be Jewish”

This "worrying trend" has intensified since the start of the war in Gaza, triggered by the attack of unprecedented violence launched by the Palestinian Islamist movement on October 7 on Israeli soil, which resulted in the deaths of more than of 1,140 people, the majority civilians, according to an AFP count based on official figures.

Hamas militants also took around 250 hostages, around 132 of whom Israel says remain in Gaza.

Israel responded with bombings and a ground offensive that cost at least 25,295 lives, according to Hamas Health Ministry figures released Monday.

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During a live discussion broadcast on X in September, EJA President Rabbi Menachem Margolin invited Elon Musk to visit the Auschwitz site.

According to Menachem Margolin, if Elon Musk were to speak following this visit, it would be a "very strong statement" that "could contribute greatly to raising awareness of the Holocaust and the fight against anti-Semitism." .

Elon Musk agreed that it could be "useful" as an "example for others."

During the discussion, "he explained that he aspired to be Jewish" and said that he had attended a Hebrew preschool.

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“It is absurd to be accused of something when all the evidence points in the other direction and my life story is actually pro-Semitic,” he added at the time.

Elon Musk has threatened to file a complaint against the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), an association fighting anti-Semitism which denounces a notable increase in disinformation and homophobic and racist insults on X, since the moderation rules changed there with the arrival of the Tesla boss.

Separately, X is suing Media Matters, accusing the non-profit organization of driving away advertisers by claiming that the platform is saturated with anti-Semitic content.

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In November, the White House accused Elon Musk of "abjectly promoting anti-Semitic and racist hatred" when he called a post on X that claimed Jewish people encouraged "hatred against whites".

This declaration caused an avalanche of departures from X of major advertisers.

The billionaire later apologized for what he called "the worst and stupidest post I've ever made."

He said his remark had been misinterpreted and he sought to clarify it in subsequent messages.

After the controversy, the SpaceX founder visited Israel, while stating that the trip had been planned earlier and was not an "apology tour."

Israeli President Isaac Herzog then told him that he had “a huge role to play” in the fight against anti-Semitism.

With AFP

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