Elon Musk told CNBC’s David Faber on Tuesday that he doesn’t care if his inflammatory tweets scare away potential Tesla buyers or Twitter advertisers.
“I’ll say what I would like, and if the consequence of that’s losing money, so be it,” said Musk, who owns Twitter.
Musk has for years tweeted controversial items, including conspiracy theories and comments his critics have called broadly discriminatory.
His defense got here after Musk caught renewed criticism for a tweet by which he likened liberal billionaire and Democratic donor George Soros to X-Men villain Magneto, a Jewish Holocaust survivor.
“He desires to erode the very fabric of civilization. Soros hates humanity,” Musk tweeted Monday.
Musk has previously criticized Soros, whose family office, Soros Fund Management, recently cut its stake in Tesla. Soros, who can also be Jewish, is a favourite goal of right wing pundits and politicians and infrequently the topic of anti-Semitic attacks. Soros and his family escaped the Nazis during World War II.
Critics said Musk’s tweets about Soros fit a bigger pattern of attacks on the 92-year-old investor and Democratic donor. “Musk’s likening Soros to Magneto is not casual; it is a nod to harmful antisemitic tropes of Jewish global control,” tweeted Alex Goldenberg, an analyst on the Network Contagion Research Institute. Israel’s Foreign Ministry, likewise, said Musk’s tweets had “anti-Semitic overtones.”
Musk on Tuesday denied he’s an anti-Semite. “I’m a pro-Semite, if anything,” he said when Faber asked him concerning the criticism. Musk has also previously tweeted and removed memes using Hitler.
Faber on Tuesday also asked Musk why he tweeted a link to someone who said a mass shooting at a Texas mall earlier this month is perhaps a part of “a nasty psyop,” or “psychological operation.”
Investigators have probed whether the shooter, whom police killed, had expressed white supremacist views since he wore a “RWDS” patch, a reference to the phrase “Right Wing Death Squad,” which is utilized by extremists. He also had Nazi tattoos, including a swastika.
“I assumed this ascribing it to white supremacy was bulls—,” Musk said, adding that he thinks there is no proof the shooter was a white supremacist. “We must always not be ascribing things to white supremacy in the event that they’re — if it’s false.”
Since Musk took over Twitter last fall, the social media network has experienced a pointy decline in promoting revenue as brands and corporations assessed changes to the platform and a few called out its outspoken latest owner.
Last week, Musk hired former NBCUniversal promoting chief Linda Yaccarino to switch him as Twitter’s CEO, a move widely seen as a technique to jumpstart Twitter’s ad business. She began Sunday.
Disclosure: NBCUniversal is the parent company of CNBC.
–CNBC’s Lora Kolodny contributed to this report.
