The Twitter proprietor attracted criticism this week for tweets that had been extremely vital of Democratic donor George Soros
Twitter chief Elon Musk has stated he’ll proceed to make controversial statements on the social media platform even when it ends in monetary losses, as he rejected accusations of anti-Semitism on US broadcaster CNBC on Tuesday.
“I’ll say what I wish to say and if the results of that’s shedding cash, so be it,” Musk informed CNBC’s David Faber, later including that he’s “allowed to say what I need.”
Musk’s feedback got here shortly after he attracted widespread condemnation on Tuesday for describing Hungarian-American businessman George Soros as somebody who “hates humanity” and needs to “erode the very cloth of civilization” to his viewers of practically 140 million Twitter followers.
Musk additionally in contrast Soros – who’s a prolific donor to quite a few left-wing causes in the US and overseas – to the Marvel Comics tremendous villain, Magneto. This prompted criticism from David Kaye, the previous UN particular rapporteur on freedom of expression, who described Musk’s Twitter salvo as “Soros-baiting anti-Semitism.”
Soros comes from a Jewish background in Hungary and survived the Nazi occupation of his house nation in his youth. Magneto, by comparability, is a comic-book villain from a German-Jewish background who was a focus camp survivor in Marvel Comics canon.
Assaults on Soros have steadily been known as anti-Jewish propaganda, together with by the Anti-Defamation League, which on Tuesday accused Musk of propagating anti-Semitic tropes in his assault on Soros.
However Musk, who has championed himself as a self-declared “free speech absolutist,” defended his stance to CNBC and insisted that he’s “pro-Semite, if something” and that his views on Soros are “simply my opinion.”
Musk, who added Twitter to his in depth enterprise portfolio final yr in a excessive profile, multi-billion-dollar takeover, has applied a wave of cost-cutting measures within the tech agency because the $44 billion deal was rubber-stamped. He admitted to the BBC final week that he has fired greater than 80% of Twitter’s workforce since taking cost.
He added that Twitter is “shut” to breaking even forward of the introduction subsequent month of promoting government Linda Yaccarino as the corporate’s new chief government instead of Musk – and that he intends to ask a number of the 6,000 workers laid off in current cuts to return to the Twitter fold “in the event that they’re not too mad at us.”
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