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A contentious comment by Elon Musk who posted on X that “civil war is inevitable”, has highlighted what a controversial figure he is, and how The Eye have been forced to take action.
Mr Musk’s inflammatory announcement showed him with a video of violent riots in Liverpool, but a spokesperson for Keir Starmer said the violence came from a small minority of people who “do not speak for Britain”, and the Prime Minister did not share the sentiments of the billionaire, who has himself been criticised for allowing far-right figures back on to his social media platform.
The spokesperson added: “There’s no justification for comments like that. What we’ve seen in this country is organised, violent thuggery that has no place, either on our streets or online”.
But Mr Musk apparently saw red over Sir Keir’s stance. He replied to a post on X from the Prime Minister (in which Sir Keir said he would not tolerate attacks on mosques or Muslim communities) by saying: “Shouldn’t you be concerned about attacks on *all* communities?”.
Mr Musk also shared a video of a person purportedly being arrested for offensive comments online, asking: “Is this Britain or the Soviet Union?”, and replied to a post criticising UK policing, suggesting the police’s response “does seem one-sided“.
The extreme right wing activist Tommy Robinson appears to be a supporter of his.
A post by Mr Musk included a Family Guy meme featuring its main character in the electric chair, alongside the words: “In 2030 for making a Facebook comment that the UK government didn’t like”.
Mr Robinson reposted it with the comment: “If it wasn’t for Elon Musk. The government and legacy media would’ve had me hung, drawn and quartered, without reply, over their failings”.
The present row shines the spotlight on previous headlines about Mr Musk. He has been accused by his daughter of being a ‘cruel and absent father’, and major firms boycotted his social media site after allegedly anti-Semitic remarks.
Mr Musk had supposedly agreed with a post on his site that falsely claimed Jewish or other people were stoking hatred against white people.
He said that the user who referenced the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory was speaking “the actual truth”.
The conspiracy theory holds that Jews or others are engineering the ethnic and cultural replacement of white populations that will lead to a “white genocide”.
It has also been spouted in the present riots, with Jews replaced by Muslims.
Major firms including Disney, Warner Bros and Sky News’ parent company Comcast pulled their advertising, and Lions Gate Entertainment as well as Paramount Global also said they were pausing advertising.
It was reported that Apple was pulling ads as well.
IBM also halted its advertising on X/Twitter after a report by Media Matters (MM), the US media watchdog, found that its ads were placed next to pro neo-Nazi content.
These are only the latest challenges to face Mr Musk, and he has always possessed a well-known propensity to turn to the law to resolve them.
It has now emerged that Mr Musk has sued MM alleging it manufactured the report showing advertisers’ posts alongside neo-Nazi content.
In a lawsuit filed in the US District Court in Texas, it was claimed that MM “knowingly and maliciously” portrayed ads next to hateful material “as if they were what typical X users experience on the platform”.
Meanwhile, according to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) Mr Musk is planning to throw $45 million a month behind Donald Trump’s presidential run, because he claimed the Trump-Vance ticket “resounds with victory”.
This has come as figures showed that at one point the monthly US ad revenue at X/Twitter had declined at least 55 per cent year-on-year each month since he bought it.
The company has struggled to retain some advertisers since the takeover, and the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Linda Yaccarino, met bank lenders who helped finance Mr Musk’s acquisition to outline the company’s business plans.
The present extraordinary row and the accusation of anti-Semitism, put centre stage his headline-grabbing views, but he has always denied that he is against Jews. He has declared: “To be super clear: I am pro free speech, but against anti-Semitism of any kind“.
Yet to Mr Musk’s critics this is pure humbug because he has described George Soros (the 93 year old Jewish survivor of the Holocaust, and a frequent victim of anti-Semitic attacks), as ‘reminding him of Magneto’ (a Marvel comic villain who is also a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust).
Mr Musk has also engaged in a very public spat with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which is a high-profile organisation opposing anti-Semitism and racism.
He has threatened the ADL with legal action, blaming it for a collapse in advertising revenue, when it could, in fact, be to do with the nervousness of companies associating with him.
With this background, action has been taken by The Eye. Previously all our stories were posted on X/Twitter automatically, but now only Facebook (FB) is used.
Of course, we are under no illusions that our stance is likely to make any difference whatsoever – X is still (even after leading firms pulled their advertising), a gigantic business.
We know that The Eye not using X will almost certainly have no impact at all, but it seemed the right thing to do.
Today’s row over Mr Musk’s controversial comment that “civil war is inevitable” only endorses this move…
The memories of our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry’s, decades long award-winning career in journalism (when he always avoided making anti-Semitic comments) as he was gripped by the rare neurological disease Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in a major book ‘A GOOD STORY’. Order it now!
Publication of another book, however, was refused, because it was to have included names.
Tomorrow – why closely examining crucial events, has always been central for Phil so he looks with interest at more new information which became a key election issue last month, apparently showing that the UK armed forces are declining massively in numbers, with some experts even predicting their ultimate demise.
