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ADL CEO: Elon Musk is a ‘great innovator’ who engages with ‘users who are espousing antisemitism and hate’
(JTA) — Days after Elon Musk threatened to sue the Anti-Defamation League for billions of dollars and amplified a hashtag spread by white supremacists, the ADL’s CEO praised Musk’s business acumen but called his behavior “frustrating” and said he was spreading “age-old tropes” around blaming Jews for antisemitism.
“I’ve always tried to treat Elon and everyone at the company with respect and forthright manner and a constructive approach. I would do that again,” Greenblatt told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Wednesday.
“The truth is that he has been, Elon Musk, a great innovator in some respects, in many respects in his business pursuits,” Greenblatt said. “That’s why it’s all the more frustrating to see him engaging online with users who are espousing antisemitism and hate.”
Greenblatt’s comments came some 36 hours after Musk fired off a stream of posts on X, the social media platform he owns and renamed from Twitter, in which he accused the ADL of trying to tank the platform by encouraging an ad boycott against it.
Amid those posts, Musk directly engaged with a white supremacist on the platform and liked a post that included the hashtag #BanTheADL, which grew popular among antisemitic users. The ADL said in a statement that neo-Nazi marchers in Florida last weekend chanted “Ban the ADL.”
Musk also tweeted that he is “pro free speech, but against anti-Semitism of any kind” and that he would remove the ADL from the platform only if it broke the law.
Multiple times, Greenblatt made clear that the ADL does not see itself as right-wing or left-wing, and compared the hashtag #BanTheADL to the hashtag #DropTheADL, which represented a campaign in 2020 by progressive nonprofits to discourage partnership with the ADL.
But as the group’s surveys have documented a rising tide of antisemitism, Greenblatt said the recent hashtag is dangerous because it could motivate attacks not just against the ADL but against Jews.
“If you look at all the #BanTheADL messaging, here is, I think, the key takeaway: This is not about the ADL,” Greenblatt said. “Of course it is on some level, but it is really about the Jews. We are being used as a stand-in for our entire community.”
Some Jewish activists on the right and left who have been highly critical of the ADL seem to agree, and have also spoken out in recent days against users calling to #BanTheADL.
“We signed onto the #DropTheADL letter, proudly,” posted the group Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, referring to the 2020 progressive effort. “So let’s be clear that this B@n the ADL hashtag is a Nazi campaign targeting what they see as a stand-in for Jews. It’s not disagreement. It’s not ‘anti-ADL.’ It’s antisemitic Nazi garbage, period.”
Conservative journalist Seth Mandel, who has repeatedly criticized Greenblatt, posted, in reference to a hate group, “The groypers tweeting ‘ban the ADL’ are bad people with bad intentions and bad designs.”
Greenblatt and the ADL have had something of a roller-coaster relationship with Musk’s Twitter. In October 2022, Greenblatt praised Musk, who owns the electric car company Tesla, as “an amazing entrepreneur and extraordinary innovator” and “the Henry Ford of our time,” a comparison he has since walked back owing to Ford’s outspoken antisemitism.
“I didn’t deliver the analogy very well,” he said Wednesday.
Greenblatt had a meeting with Musk, and about a month later, the ADL and NAACP led a call for companies to pause their advertising on Twitter to protest what they saw as his dismantling of guardrails against hate speech. At one point, according to the Forward, the ADL resumed paid advertising on Twitter. It told JTA on Wednesday that its paid ads had ceased, though its official X accounts, including Greenblatt’s, still pay a monthly fee for verification that enables certain features on the platform .
In the intervening months, the ADL has criticized some of Musk’s actions and statements, including invective he posted against George Soros, a liberal Jewish megadonor and frequent focus of antisemitic conspiracy theories. It also acceded to his call to condemn a South African apartheid-era protest song calling for white farmers to be killed.
Last week, Greenblatt tweeted that he had a “frank + productive conversation” with Linda Yaccarino, the CEO of X, about hate speech on the platform. By Friday, #BanTheADL was trending after being posted by a white supremacist and days later, Musk began his series of posts threatening litigation against the group.
That included a post in which Musk wrote, replying to a white supremacist, “The ADL, because they are so aggressive in their demands to ban social media accounts for even minor infractions, are ironically the biggest generators of anti-Semitism on this platform!”
Asked whether he thought Musk was espousing antisemitism and hate, Greenblatt sighed and said Musk was “engaging with users who are blatantly and boldly doing so, and that’s very problematic. I would say that blaming the Jews or ADL for antisemitism also kind of evokes the age-old tropes that we work so hard to fight every single day.”
Greenblatt also stood by the value of organizing ad boycotts against social media platforms, a tactic the group and other civil rights organizations used against Facebook in 2020. He said the ADL would address whatever lawsuit comes, if one does, and added that Musk’s claims were spurious.
“Blaming the Jews is a tried-and-true tactic throughout the ages,” he said. “Suggesting that the ADL, a nonprofit organization, can somehow engineer things and somehow we have more sway than the wealthiest man in the world running one of the most powerful media platforms on the planet, that has an extraordinary degree of resources at its disposal … I don’t believe it.”
With additional reporting by Asaf Shalev.
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The post ADL CEO: Elon Musk is a ‘great innovator’ who engages with ‘users who are espousing antisemitism and hate’ appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Rubio Heads to Israel Amid Tensions Among US Middle East Allies
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks to members of the media, before departing for Israel at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, US, September 13, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Nathan Howard/Pool
US President Donald Trump’s top diplomat, Marco Rubio headed to Israel on Saturday, amid tensions with fellow US allies in the Middle East over Israel’s strike on Hamas leaders in Qatar and expansion of settlements in the West Bank.
Speaking to reporters before departure, Rubio reiterated that the US and President Donald Trump were not happy about the strikes.
Rubio said the US relationship with Israel would not be affected, but that he would discuss with the Israelis how the strike would affect Trump’s desire to secure the return of all the hostages held by Hamas, get rid of the terrorists and end the Gaza war.
“What’s happened, has happened,” he said. “We’re gonna meet with them. We’re gonna talk about what the future holds,” he said.
“There are still 48 hostages that deserve to be released immediately, all at once. And there is still the hard work ahead once this ends, of rebuilding Gaza in a way that provides people the quality of life that they all want.”
Rubio said it had yet to be determined who would do that, who would pay for it and who would be in charge of the process.
After Israel, Rubio is due to join Trump’s planned visit to Britain next week.
Hamas still holds 48 hostages, and Qatar has been one of the mediators, along with the US, trying to secure a ceasefire deal that would include the captives’ release.
On Tuesday, Israel attempted to kill the political leaders of Hamas with an airstrike on Doha. US officials described it as a unilateral escalation that did not serve American or Israeli interests.
The strike on the territory of a close US ally sparked broad condemnation from other Arab states and derailed ceasefire and hostage talks brokered by Qatar.
On Friday, Rubio met with Qatar’s Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani at the White House, underscoring competing interests in the region that Rubio will seek to balance on his trip. Later that day, US President Donald Trump held dinner with the prime minister in New York.
Rubio’s trip comes ahead of high-level meetings at the United Nations in New York later this month. Countries including France and Britain are expected to recognize Palestinian statehood, a move opposed by Israel.
Washington says such recognition would bolster Hamas and Rubio has suggested the move could spur the annexation of the West Bank sought by hardline members of the Israeli government.
ON Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signed an agreement to push ahead with a settlement expansion plan that would cut across West Bank land that the Palestinians seek for a state. Last week, the United Arab Emirates warned that this would cross a red line and undermine the U.S.-brokered Abraham Accords that normalized UAE-Israel relations in 2020.
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Netanyahu Posts Message Appearing to Confirm Hamas Leaders Survived Doha Strike
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a Plenum session of the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament, in Jerusalem, June 11, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – In a statement posted to social media on Saturday evening, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the Qatar-based leadership of Hamas, reiterating that the jihadist group had to regard for the lives of Gazans and represented an obstacle to ending the war and releasing the Israelis it held hostage.
The wording of Netanyahu’s message appeared to confirm that the strike targeting the Hamas leaders in Doha was not crowned with success.
“The Hamas terrorists chiefs living in Qatar don’t care about the people in Gaza,” wrote Netanyahu. “They blocked all ceasefire attempts in order to endlessly drag out the war.” He added that “Getting rid of them would rid the main obstacle to releasing all our hostages and ending the war.”
Israel is yet to officially comment on the result of the strike, which has incurred widespread international criticism.
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Trump Hosts Qatari Prime Minister After Israeli Attack in Doha
Qatar’s Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani attends an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council, following an Israeli attack on Hamas leaders in Doha, Qatar, at UN headquarters in New York City, US, Sept. 11, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz
US President Donald Trump held dinner with the Qatari prime minister in New York on Friday, days after US ally Israel attacked Hamas leaders in Doha.
Israel attempted to kill the political leaders of Hamas with an attack in Qatar on Tuesday, a strike that risked derailing US-backed efforts to broker a truce in Gaza and end the nearly two-year-old conflict. The attack was widely condemned in the Middle East and beyond as an act that could escalate tensions in a region already on edge.
Trump expressed annoyance about the strike in a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and sought to assure the Qataris that such attacks would not happen again.
Trump and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani were joined by a top Trump adviser, US special envoy Steve Witkoff.
“Great dinner with POTUS. Just ended,” Qatar’s deputy chief of mission, Hamah Al-Muftah, said on X.
The White House confirmed the dinner had taken place but offered no details.
The session followed an hour-long meeting that al-Thani had at the White House on Friday with Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
A source briefed on the meeting said they discussed Qatar’s future as a mediator in the region and defense cooperation in the wake of the Israeli strikes against Hamas in Doha.
Trump said he was unhappy with Israel’s strike, which he described as a unilateral action that did not advance US or Israeli interests.
Washington counts Qatar as a strong Gulf ally. Qatar has been a main mediator in long-running negotiations for a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza, for the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza and for a post-conflict plan for the territory.
Al-Thani blamed Israel on Tuesday for trying to sabotage chances for peace but said Qatar would not be deterred from its role as mediator.