Elon Musk was widely criticized after he announced he has "no choice" but to sue the Anti-Defamation League (ADL)—which specializes in civil rights law and combats antisemitism and extremism—because he blames them for $22 billion in lost revenue on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Musk lashed out amid the organization's long-standing concerns about the social media platform's rise in hate speech and restored accounts that were previously banned, actions that advertisers have cited as reasons for their exodus from the platform.
In a post on the website, Musk made his threat quite clear:
"To clear our platform’s name on the matter of anti-Semitism, it looks like we have no choice but to file a defamation lawsuit against the Anti-Defamation League … oh the irony!"
You can see Musk's message below.
X's value has plunged since Musk’s purchase last year and he said on Monday that the ADL “seems to be responsible for most of our revenue loss.”
He said in another post that the organization’s “unfounded accusations” have kept advertisers away:
"Advertisers avoid controversy, so all that is needed for ADL to crush our US [and] European ad revenue is to make unfounded accusations. They have much less power in Asia, so our ad revenue there is still strong."
This 'controversy' causes advertisers to 'pause,' but that pause is permanent until ADL gives the green light, which they will not do without us agreeing to secretly suspend or shadowban any account they don’t like."
"That is the relationship they’ve had with X/Twitter for many years. Presumably, they have that with all western search or social media orgs."
You can see Musk's post below.
Musk also welcomed former Fox News personality Tucker Carlson to join his lawsuit since the ADL had also pressured Fox News advertisers when Carlson used White supremacist talking points in many of his segments for the network.
Musk, who has repeatedly claimed to be a "free-speech absolutist," drew criticism for his legal threats against an organization known for combating hate speech and discrimination.
Musk, who paid $44 billion to purchase the social media platform, has repeatedly insisted that Twitter needs to go private if it wants to become a platform for free speech, though he has repeatedly come under fire for silencing his critics and spreading misinformation.
Last year, he erroneously blamed "activist groups" for a "massive drop" in Twitter's ad revenue after multiple companies stopped advertising on the platform, saying they'd successfully pressured advertisers "even though nothing has changed with content moderation and we did everything we could to appease" them.
