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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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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War

Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests

A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan

Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.