Elon Musk Really Doesn’t Want IBM’s Money
He attacked the tech company, which had paused spending after learning that its ads were appearing next to Nazi tweets.
Leon Neal/Pool via REUTERS
A day after IBM stopped advertising on X after its ads appeared next to Nazi posts, Elon Musk opted not to apologize. Rather, on Friday he boosted a post blasting the tech business for its “complicity with the Nazis” during World War II.
“Good morning to everyone except IBM,” wrote Ashley St. Clair, who works at the conservative satirical site The Babylon Bee. She included a screenshot of a 2001 story in The Atlantic detailing IBM’s alleged collaboration with the Nazi regime.
“Yeah,” Musk replied, along with emojis depicting anger and laughter.
Earlier in the week, the liberal nonprofit Media Matters had assembled a list of advertisements that were displayed next to hateful speech on X, such as posts denying the Holocaust. The list included sponsored content from IBM, Oracle, Xfinity, and Apple.
Apple was suspending its advertisements as well, Axios reported on Friday. Soon after, Disney, Lionsgate, and Warner Bros Discovery announced that they would be suspending advertising on X as well.
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Musk has been accused of disseminating antisemitic rhetoric personally, including by agreeing on Wednesday with a user who claimed that Jewish people have been promoting a “dialectical hatred against whites.”
X CEO Linda Yaccarino tried to contain the damage on Thursday by insisting that the company has “been very clear that discrimination by everyone should STOP across the board.” Meanwhile, Musk derided Media Matters as “an evil organization.”
In a statement, a spokesperson for IBM said that the company “has never been silent on this issue,” adding, “As with other foreign owned companies that did business in Germany at that time, IBM’s German operations came under the control of Nazi authorities prior to and during World War II... IBM and its employees around the world maintain that the atrocities committed by the Nazi regime are abhorrent and condemn any actions which aided their unspeakable acts.”
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