Apple on Friday suspended its advertising on Elon Musk’s X social media platform after a report found that its ads were placed next to far-right content.
iPhone maker’s decision to pause ads, first reported by news site AxiosIt’s the latest blow for X, the social media app formerly known as Twitter.
Film company Lionsgate joined Apple in removing its ads from the site, a day after IBM cut ties with Musk’s embattled platform.
The Post has sought comment from Apple and X.
Hours earlier, Musk drew condemnation from the White House for his “abhorrent promotion” of a “appalling lie” that claimed Jews supported “hordes of minorities” immigrating to the United States.
Musk wrote on Wednesday in X to another user on the platform, “You told the truth,” after that user, who has few followers and does not use his name on his profile, pushed an anti-Semitic trope about Jews.
“The Jewish communities [sic] “They have been pushing… a dialectical hate against white people that they say they want people to stop using against them,” wrote the user with whom Musk agreed.
“I am deeply uninterested in giving even the slightest s— now about Western Jewish populations coming to the disturbing realization that those hordes of minorities supporting the flooding of their country don’t like them very much. You want them to tell you the truth to your face, there it is.”
In another tweet In the same thread, Musk added: “The [Anti-Defamation League] it unfairly attacks the majority of the West, even though the majority of the West supports the Jewish people and Israel. This is because, according to their own principles, they cannot criticize the minority groups that constitute their main threat. It is not right and it must stop.”
White House spokesman Andrew Bates said the owner of X, SpaceX and Tesla promoted the same claim that prompted killer Robert Bowers to kill 11 people at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue in 2018.
“It is unacceptable to repeat the horrible lie behind the most fatal act of anti-Semitism in American history at any time, let alone a month after the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust,” Bates said.
IBM said Thursday it was pausing ads on and the Nazi Party.
“IBM has zero tolerance for hate speech and discrimination and we have immediately suspended all advertising on X while we investigate this totally unacceptable situation,” the company said in a statement.
X said its system does not intentionally place brands “actively next to this type of content” and that content cited by Media Matters would no longer be able to generate revenue from its posts.
Dozens of Jewish officials, including activists and rabbis, demanded that Apple, Google, Amazon and Disney stop ads on X.
Jewish leaders circulated a petition demanding that Google and Apple remove X from their app stores.
X CEO Linda Yaccarino released a statement Thursday saying the company has been “extremely clear about our efforts to combat anti-Semitism and discrimination.”
“There is no place for this anywhere in the world; It’s ugly and it’s wrong. Full stop,” she wrote.
Advertisers have abandoned the site since Musk bought it and reduced content moderation, resulting in a dramatic increase in hate speech toward X, civil rights groups said.
Reuters reported in October that
Anti-Semitism has been on the rise in recent years in the United States and around the world.
Following the outbreak of war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, which attacked Israel on October 7, anti-Semitic incidents in the United States increased nearly 400% from the previous year period, the ADL said.
With pole cables
