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Elon Musk: “It is deeply sad and tragic that people can do this to other people”
Photo:
Zbigniew Meissner / EPO
The entrepreneur Elon Musk visited the memorial site of the former German concentration camp Auschwitz.
»It was very moving.
And it's deeply sad and tragic that people can do this to other people," said Musk after the visit to Krakow at a conference on online anti-Semitism organized by the European Jewish Association (EJA).
He will need a few days to process the impressions, Musk continued.
His visit to Auschwitz was originally only planned for Tuesday.
EJA Chairman Menachem Margolin invited Musk to the visit in September.
In November, Musk triggered a storm of indignation when he agreed with a user on X who had written that "Jewish communities" were fomenting "hatred against white people."
Musk wrote that he had told “the actual truth.”
The background is a right-wing extremist conspiracy narrative, according to which Jews are pursuing a secret plan to bring irregular migrants to Western countries in order to weaken the white majorities.
Musk's comments led to a number of major advertisers stopping their ads on the platform, including Apple, Disney and IBM.
The billionaire later admitted that his statement was truly the "worst and stupidest post" he had ever made.
He apologized and also explained that he had been misunderstood.
In Krakow, Musk emphasized that the principle of freedom of expression counts for X. If someone posts a false claim, others can correct it immediately.
"The tireless search for the truth is the goal of X." If social media and freedom of expression had existed at the time of Auschwitz, it would have been impossible to hide this crime, said Musk.
Musk took over Twitter in October 2022.
Observers such as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which fights against discrimination and defamation of Jews, have since denounced a significant increase in hate messages and misinformation on X.
sol/dpa/AFP