Apple calls a halt to advertising on X after Musk backs antisemitic post

Apple is pausing all advertising on X (formerly Twitter), the Elon Musk-owned social network, sources tell Axios.

The move follows Musk’s endorsement of antisemitic conspiracy theories as well as Apple ads reportedly being placed alongside far-right content. Apple has been a major advertiser on the social media site, notes Axio. IBM has also paused adverting and released a statement to the Financial Times saying that it has “suspended all advertising on X while we investigate this entirely unacceptable situation.”

Musk faced backlash for endorsing an antisemitic post Wednesday, as 164 Jewish rabbis and activists upped their call to Apple, Google, Amazon and Disney to stop advertising on X, and for Apple and Google to remove it from their platforms.

As reported by NBC News, on Wednesday, a user posted to X accusations that Jews push hatred of white people, saying he was “deeply disinterested in giving the tiniest s— now about western Jewish populations,” realizing that “minorities that support flooding their country don’t exactly like them too much.”

Musk replied to the post, “You have said the actual truth.” His post garnered more than six million views, according to the site-provided statistics. Later in the thread, Musk targeted the Anti-Defamation League, an organization that fights antisemitism.

“The ADL unjustly attacks the majority of the West, despite the majority of the West supporting the Jewish people and Israel,” he wrote. “This is because they cannot, by their own tenets, criticize the minority groups who are their primary threat.” Musk has criticized the ADL in the past, too.

NBC News says that the White House has condemned a post Elon Musk made on X that embraced an antisemitic claim by another account that accused Jews of pushing hatred against white people.

“We condemn this abhorrent promotion of Antisemitic and racist hate in the strongest terms, which runs against our core values as Americans,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a statement. “We all have a responsibility to bring people together against hate, and an obligation to speak out against anyone who attacks the dignity of their fellow Americans and compromises the safety of our communities.”

The nonprofit Media Matters for America published a report Thursday that highlighted Apple, IBM, Amazon and Oracle as among those whose ads were shown next to far-right posts. The report says “we recently found ads for Apple, Bravo, Oracle, Xfinity, and IBM next to posts that tout Hitler and his Nazi Party on X. 

Keep in mind that Media Matters for America describes itself  as “a web-based, not-for-profit, 501 (c)(3) progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media.”