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IBM pulls its ads from Twitter/X after Elon Musk calls an antisemitic post the ‘actual truth’
(JTA) — IBM pulled $1 million in ads from X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, after owner Elon Musk called an antisemitic post the “absolute truth,” his most direct endorsement of antisemitism since he started sparring with watchdogs who call out hate speech.
And the tech giant may not be the only one to cut its ad spending. The New York Times reported Thursday that ad salespeople for X were fielding questions about the post, and other white nationalist comments, from other major advertisers.
Musk was replying Wednesday to a user on X who wrote, “Jewish communities have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them. I’m deeply disinterested in giving the tiniest s— now about western Jewish populations coming to the disturbing realization that those hordes of minorities [they] support flooding their country don’t exactly like them too much.”
“You have said the actual truth,” Musk replied.
The post appeared to endorse the “Great Replacement Theory,” which posits that Jews are orchestrating the replacement of white populations in Western countries via the mass immigration of people of color. The theory motivated the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, the deadliest antisemitic attack in American history, and has inspired other mass shootings.
Musk’s endorsement of the post comes as reports of antisemitic harassment and violence are spiking during Israel’s war with Hamas.
IBM released a statement to the Financial Times saying it had “suspended all advertising on X while we investigate this entirely unacceptable situation.”
Also troubling for advertisers are reports from a liberal watchdog, Media Matters, that their ads were appearing adjacent to posts by antisemites and white supremacists. On Thursday, Musk called Media Matters an “evil organization.”
Musk, known as the CEO of electric car manufacturer Tesla and SpaceX, the space travel firm, also canceled a scheduled appearance at the CEO component of the Asia Pacific Economic Coalition now meeting in San Francisco. He and organizers blamed a last-minute scheduling conflict.
Linda Yaccarino, whom Musk hired earlier this year as X’s CEO, after saying he would be hands-off on the platform, said in a post, without referring to her boss, that “discrimination should STOP.”
“X has also been extremely clear about our efforts to combat antisemitism and discrimination,” she wrote. “There’s no place for it anywhere in the world — it’s ugly and wrong.”
Musk has flirted with antisemitic imagery since he took over the platform about a year ago. He attacked billionaire liberal philanthropist and hedge funder George Soros, a frequent target of antisemitism as someone who “hates humanity” and has repeatedly attacked and threatened to sue the Anti-Defamation League, at one point blaming the antisemitism watchdog for the proliferation of antisemitism.
In a response to his “actual truth” post, Musk again took aim at the ADL.
“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. It is not right and needs to stop.”
Jewish groups. including the ADL, said Musk’s latest foray was dangerous.
“Elon Musk’s agreement with a user promoting elements of the Great Replacement theory isn’t the ‘truth’,” the American Jewish Committee said on the platform. “It is the deadliest antisemitic conspiracy theory in modern U.S. history and motivated the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting.”
A letter by more than 100 Jewish activists called out Musk for “spreading the kind of antisemitism that leads to massacres.”
Musk is not the only conservative influencer who is now amplifying the “Great Replacement Theory” and singling out Jews. Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, a conservative campus movement, defended Musk in an appearance on his streamed talkshow.
“I don’t like generalizations, not every Jewish person believes that,” Kirk said. “It is true that some of the largest financiers of left wing anti-white causes have been Jewish Americans. They went all in on ‘woke’ and it wasn’t just ADL. It was some of the top Jewish organizations in the country that have done that.”
Tucker Carlson, the top-rated talkshow host fired earlier this year by Fox News Channel, joined Candace Owens, another far-right influencer, in claiming that wealthy Jews were paying to promote anti-white movements. Owens and Carlson were irked that Jewish donors were withdrawing funding from universities that have been the scenes of antisemitic harassment since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.
“You were calling my children immoral for their skin color. You paid for that,” Carlson said on his streamed show Wednesday on X. “So why shouldn’t I be mad at you?”
Both have gone to bat for antisemitic statements in the past. Carlson endorsed the Great Replacement theory on his Fox show in 2021. Owens defended the rapper Kanye West during his stream of antisemitic comments last year.
Carlson and Kirk are both close to former President Donald Trump, who also has become more explicit in recent months in singling out Jews, sharing content suggesting that Jews who do not vote for him are a threat to the country.
The flooding of social media with antisemitic content featured in a call that the New York Times reported Friday between executives of the short video platform, TikTok, and Jewish celebrities.
“What is happening at TikTok is it is creating the biggest antisemitic movement since the Nazis,” said Sacha Baron Cohen, the actor and comedian who was among more than a dozen celebrities on the call. “Shame on you.”
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The post IBM pulls its ads from Twitter/X after Elon Musk calls an antisemitic post the ‘actual truth’ appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Syria’s Sharaa Says Talks With Israel Could Yield Results ‘In Coming Days’
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa speaks at the opening ceremony of the 62nd Damascus International Fair, the first edition held since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, in Damascus, Syria, Aug. 27, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa said on Wednesday that ongoing negotiations with Israel to reach a security pact could lead to results “in the coming days.”
He told reporters in Damascus the security pact was a “necessity” and that it would need to respect Syria’s airspace and territorial unity and be monitored by the United Nations.
Syria and Israel are in talks to reach an agreement that Damascus hopes will secure a halt to Israeli airstrikes and the withdrawal of Israeli troops who have pushed into southern Syria.
Reuters reported this week that Washington was pressuring Syria to reach a deal before world leaders gather next week for the UN General Assembly in New York.
But Sharaa, in a briefing with journalists including Reuters ahead of his expected trip to New York to attend the meeting, denied the US was putting any pressure on Syria and said instead that it was playing a mediating role.
He said Israel had carried out more than 1,000 strikes on Syria and conducted more than 400 ground incursions since Dec. 8, when the rebel offensive he led toppled former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.
Sharaa said Israel’s actions were contradicting the stated American policy of a stable and unified Syria, which he said was “very dangerous.”
He said Damascus was seeking a deal similar to a 1974 disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria that created a demilitarized zone between the two countries.
He said Syria sought the withdrawal of Israeli troops but that Israel wanted to remain at strategic locations it seized after Dec. 8, including Mount Hermon. Israeli ministers have publicly said Israel intends to keep control of the sites.
He said if the security pact succeeds, other agreements could be reached. He did not provide details, but said a peace agreement or normalization deal like the US-mediated Abraham Accords, under which several Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic ties with Israel, was not currently on the table.
He also said it was too early to discuss the fate of the Golan Heights because it was “a big deal.”
Reuters reported this week that Israel had ruled out handing back the zone, which Donald Trump unilaterally recognized as Israeli during his first term as US president.
“It’s a difficult case – you have negotiations between a Damascene and a Jew,” Sharaa told reporters, smiling.
SECURITY PACT DERAILED IN JULY
Sharaa also said Syria and Israel had been just “four to five days” away from reaching the basis of a security pact in July, but that developments in the southern province of Sweida had derailed those discussions.
Syrian troops were deployed to Sweida in July to quell fighting between Druze armed factions and Bedouin fighters. But the violence worsened, with Syrian forces accused of execution-style killings and Israel striking southern Syria, the defense ministry in Damascus and near the presidential palace.
Sharaa on Wednesday described the strikes near the presidential palace as “not a message, but a declaration of war,” and said Syria had still refrained from responding militarily to preserve the negotiations.
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Anti-Israel Activists Gear Up to ‘Flood’ UN General Assembly
US Capitol Police and NYPD officers clash with anti-Israel demonstrators, on the day Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint meeting of Congress, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, DC, July 24, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Umit Bektas
Anti-Israel groups are planning a wave of raucous protests in New York City during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) over the next several days, prompting concerns that the demonstrations could descend into antisemitic rhetoric and intimidation.
A coalition of anti-Israel activists is organizing the protests in and around UN headquarters to coincide with speeches from Middle Eastern leaders and appearances by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The demonstrations are expected to draw large crowds and feature prominent pro-Palestinian voices, some of whom have been criticized for trafficking in antisemitic tropes, in addition to calling for the destruction of Israe.
Organizers of the demonstrations have promoted the coordinated events on social media as an opportunity to pressure world leaders to hold Israel accountable for its military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, with some messaging framed in sharply hostile terms.
On Sunday, for example, activists shouted at Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon.
“Zionism is terrorism. All you guys are terrorists committing ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza and Palestine. Shame on you, Zionist animals,” they shouted.
BREAKING: PRO-PALESTINE PROTESTORS CONFRONT “ISRAELI” AMBASSADOR DANNY DANON AT THE UNITED NATIONS
1/5 pic.twitter.com/4G1VYEMGzV
— Within Our Lifetime (@WOLPalestine) September 14, 2025
The Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM), warned on its website that the scale and tone of the planned demonstrations risk crossing the line from political protest into hate speech, arguing that anti-Israel activists are attempting to hijack the UN gathering to spread antisemitism and delegitimize the Jewish state’s right to exist.
Outside the UN last week, masked protesters belonging to the activist group INDECLINE kicked a realistic replica of Netanyahu’s decapitated head as though it were a soccer ball.
US activist group plays soccer with Bibi’s mock decapitated HEAD right outside NYC UN HQ
Peep shot at 00:40
Footage posted by INDECLINE collective just as UN General Assembly about to kick off
‘Following the game, ball was donated to Palestinian Genocide Museum’ pic.twitter.com/TQ84sgZhKr
— RT (@RT_com) September 9, 2025
Within Our Lifetime (WOL), a radical anti-Israel activist group, has vowed to “flood” the UNGA on behalf of the pro-Palestine movement.
WOL, one of the most prolific anti-Israel activist groups, came under immense fire after it organized a protest against an exhibition to honor the victims of the Oct. 7 massacre at the Nova Music Festival in southern Israel. During the event, the group chanted “resistance is justified when people are occupied!” and “Israel, go to hell!”
“We will be there to confront them with the truth: Their silence and inaction enable genocide. The world cannot continue as if Gaza does not exist,” WOL said of its planned demonstrations in New York. “This is the time to make our voices impossible to ignore. Come to New York by any means necessary, to stand, to march, to demand the UN act and end the siege.”
Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), two other anti-Israel organizations that have helped organize widespread demonstrations against the Jewish state during the war in Gaza, also announced they are planning a march from Times Square to the UN headquarters on Friday.
“The time is now for each and every UN member state to uphold their duty under international law: sanction Israel and end the genocide,” the groups said in a statement.
JVP, an organization that purports to fight for “Palestinian liberation,” has positioned itself as a staunch adversary of the Jewish state. The group argued in a 2021 booklet that Jews should not write Hebrew liturgy because hearing the language would be “deeply traumatizing” to Palestinians. JVP has repeatedly defended the Oct. 7 massacre of roughly 1,200 people in southern Israel by Hamas as a justified “resistance.” Chapters of the organization have urged other self-described “progressives” to throw their support behind Hamas and other terrorist groups against Israel
Similarly, PYM, another radical anti-Israel group, has repeatedly defended terrorism and violence against the Jewish state. PYM has organized many anti-Israel protests in the two years following the Oct. 7 attacks in the Jewish state. Recently, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) called for a federal investigation into the organization after Aisha Nizar, one of the group’s leaders, urged supporters to sabotage the US supply chain for the F-35 fighter jet, one of the most advanced US military assets and a critical component of Israel’s defense.
The UN General Assembly has historically been a flashpoint for heated debate over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Previous gatherings have seen dueling demonstrations outside the Manhattan venue, with pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian groups both seeking to influence the international spotlight.
While warning about the demonstrations, CAM noted it recently launched a new mobile app, Report It, that allows users worldwide to quickly and securely report antisemitic incidents in real time.
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Nina Davidson Presses Universities to Back Words With Action as Jewish Students Return to Campus Amid Antisemitism Crisis
Nina Davidson on The Algemeiner’s ‘J100’ podcast. Photo: Screenshot
Philanthropist Nina Davidson, who served on the board of Barnard College, has called on universities to pair tough rhetoric on combatting antisemitism with enforcement as Jewish students returned to campuses for the new academic year.
“Years ago, The Algemeiner had published a list ranking the most antisemitic colleges in the country. And number one was Columbia,” Davidson recalled on a recent episode of The Algemeiner‘s “J100” podcast. “As a board member and as someone who was representing the institution, it really upset me … At the board meeting, I brought it up and I said, ‘What are we going to do about this?’”
Host David Cohen, chief executive officer of The Algemeiner, explained he had revisited Davidson’s remarks while she was being honored for her work at The Algemeiner‘s 8th annual J100 gala, held in October 2021, noting their continued relevance.
“It could have been the same speech in 2025,” he said, underscoring how longstanding concerns about campus antisemitism, while having intensified in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, are not new.
Davidson argued that universities already possess the tools to protect students – codes of conduct, time-place-manner rules, and consequences for threats or targeted harassment – but too often fail to apply them evenly. “Statements are not enough,” she said, arguing that institutions need to enforce their rules and set a precedent that there will be consequences for individuals who refuse to follow them.
She also said that stakeholders – alumni, parents, and donors – are reassessing their relationships with schools that, in their view, have not safeguarded Jewish students. While supportive of open debate, Davidson distinguished between protest and intimidation, calling for leadership that protects expression while ensuring campus safety.
The episode surveyed specific pressure points that administrators will face this fall: repeat anti-Israel encampments, disruptions of Jewish programming, and the challenge of distinguishing political speech from conduct that violates university rules. “Unless schools draw those lines now,” Davidson warned, “they’ll be scrambling once the next crisis hits.”
Cohen closed by framing the discussion as a test of institutional credibility, asking whether universities will “turn policy into protection” in real time. Davidson agreed, pointing to students who “need to know the rules aren’t just on paper.”
The full conversation is available on The Algemeiner’s “J100” podcast.