© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Individuals collect to protest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s go to to California as he’s scheduled to satisfy with entrepreneur Elon Musk, at union sq. in San Francisco, California, U.S. September 18, 2023. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File
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JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Elon Musk, the tech entrepreneur accused by civil rights teams of amplifying anti-Jewish hatred on his X social media platform, will meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog in Israel on Monday, Channel 12 TV stated on Sunday.
An Israeli supply confirmed the go to by Musk, a billionaire who additionally runs Tesla (NASDAQ:) and SpaceX. Spokespeople for Tesla and X, previously often known as Twitter, didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.
Musk’s go to coincides with a four-day truce in an Israeli conflict with Palestinian Hamas militants in Gaza.
Netanyahu met Musk in California on Sept. 18 and urged him to strike a steadiness between defending free expression and preventing hate speech after weeks of controversy over antisemitic content material on X.
Musk responded by saying he was towards antisemitism and towards something that “promotes hate and battle,” repeating his earlier statements that X wouldn’t promote hate speech.
Throughout that go to, earlier than the conflict, about 200 individuals protested efforts by Netanyahu’s right-wing authorities to curb the powers of Israeli courts. They gathered outdoors Tesla’s California manufacturing unit, the place the assembly happened.
Then on Nov. 15 Musk agreed with a put up on X that falsely claimed Jewish individuals had been stoking hatred towards white individuals, saying the person who referenced the “Nice Alternative” conspiracy idea was talking “the precise fact.”
The White Home condemned what it referred to as an “abhorrent promotion of antisemitic and racist hate” that “runs towards our core values as Individuals.”
Main U.S. firms together with Walt Disney (NYSE:), Warner Bros Discovery (NASDAQ:) and NBCUniversal father or mother Comcast (NASDAQ:) paused their commercials on his social media web site.
The “Nice Alternative” conspiracy idea holds that Jewish individuals and leftists are engineering the ethnic and cultural alternative of white populations with non-white immigrants that may result in a “white genocide.”
Antisemitism and Islamophobia have risen in america and worldwide, together with throughout the now seven-week-old conflict between Israel and Hamas.
Following the outbreak of conflict, antisemitic incidents in america rose by almost 400% from the year-earlier interval, in accordance with the Anti-Defamation League, a nonprofit group that fights antisemitism.
Musk has stated X ought to be a platform for individuals to put up numerous viewpoints, however the firm will restrict the distribution of sure posts which will violate its insurance policies, calling the method “freedom of speech, not attain.”
Musk is growing a man-made intelligence startup xAI, and Israel is taken into account a world chief within the area, because of burgeoning computing and robotics industries.
Israel’s nearly $500 billion financial system, beforehand on monitor for development to prime 3% this 12 months with low unemployment, is now estimated at round 2% with gradual development anticipated in 2024 so long as the conflict continues. After an preliminary 6% tumble the outset of the conflict, the has gained 8% towards the greenback and is now at pre-war ranges. Helped primarily by native buyers, inventory costs have additionally recovered from a steep drop final month.
