Apple latest to suspend ads on X following antisemitic Musk post: reports
New York City, Nov 17 (EFE).- Technology giant Apple is the latest major company to halt advertising on X after owner Elon Musk endorsed an antisemitic post, Axios reported Friday.
Companies such as IBM, Disney, Warner Bros, Paramount, Discovery, Sony Pictures, Comcast/NBCUniveral and Lionsgate have paused their advertising on X since Musk’s post on Wednesday, according to company statements and media reports.
“You have said the actual truth,” Musk wrote in response to an X post that claimed Jewish communities are pushing “dialectical hatred against whites.”
The post prompted a statement from the White House on Friday, which said: “We condemn this abhorrent promotion of antisemitic and racist hate in the strongest terms, which runs against our core values as Americans.”
According to Axios, the move by Apple, one of the major advertisers on X, comes after the controversy caused by Musk and also by the positioning of the iPhone manufacturer’s ads alongside “far-right” content, according to a report.
On Thursday, a day after Musk’s comment, the progressive NGO Media Matters for America published a report exposing that ads from big brands such as Apple, Bravo, Oracle and Xfinity have been placed next to content that touts Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party.
In a message on his social network after the report was published, Musk wrote a post saying: “Media is an evil organization.”
In parallel, a group of 164 Jewish leaders, including rabbis, artists, activists and academics of “diverse ideologies and beliefs,” issued a statement “calling out antisemitism on X,” accusing Musk of “spreading antisemitic conspiracy theories” and “doubling down on his over antisemitism.”
They demanded that these large advertisers stop funding the platform and that Apple and Google to remove X from their stores.
The European Commission also decided to suspend its advertising on X due to “widespread concerns relating to the spread of disinformation,” but the measure seems to be in response to the war between Israel and Hamas, Politico reported on Friday.
Amid the uproar caused by Musk’s post, X’s CEO Linda Yaccarino said Thursday that the company has been “extremely clear about our efforts to combat antisemitism and discrimination,” but did not address the issues surrounding her boss. EFE
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