It was the most recent salvo in a marketing campaign by Musk to counter allegations of rampant antisemitism on his platform — together with his personal amplification of antisemitic tropes — by positioning himself as a staunch supporter of the Jewish state. However the strikes drew combined reactions from Jewish organizations, and to date there are few indications that they’re profitable again advertisers.

If something, “he’s digging himself deeper and deeper into the bottom,” mentioned Ruben Schreurs, chief technique officer on the advertising consultancy Ebiquity.

Simply over a 12 months after Musk acquired Twitter, pledging to make it a haven totally free speech and subsequently shedding a lot of its workforce, its promoting enterprise is on the ropes. Reviews of spiking hate speech on the platform; Musk’s choice to prioritize the posts of paying subscribers over these of journalists and media shops; and his personal trollish, typically incendiary posts have sparked advertiser boycotts, whereas different manufacturers and influential customers backed away. These embody The Washington Put up, which mentioned Tuesday that it had paused promoting on X.

This month, a report by the left-leaning media watchdog Media Issues discovered pro-Nazi tweets working subsequent to main manufacturers’ adverts on X. That got here on the heels of Musk personally endorsing a tweet that echoed a baseless antisemitic accusation well-liked with white nationalists.

Antisemitism was rising on-line. Then Elon Musk’s X supercharged it.

The outcome was a backlash wherein a few of X’s largest remaining advertisers, together with IBM, Apple and Disney, introduced that they might pause their spending on the location. Musk responded by suing Media Issues, alleging defamation — and by dramatically ramping up his public assist of Israel.

On Nov. 17, because the checklist of firms pulling their adverts grew, Musk tweeted that sure phrases related to requires Palestinian liberation from Israel, together with “decolonization” and “from the river to the ocean,” essentially indicate “genocide” and that anybody utilizing them on X can be suspended. It was a pointy departure from his typical rhetoric in regards to the significance of tolerating objectionable speech.

At the least one outstanding Jewish chief appeared mollified. Jonathan Greenblatt, president of the Anti-Defamation League, which had sparred with Musk up to now, referred to as the crackdown “vital and welcome” and praised Musk’s “management in preventing hate.”

Subsequent, Musk turned to a now-familiar ally in Netanyahu. Twice earlier than, Musk has spoken with Netanyahu on the top of controversies over his dalliances with antisemitism — as soon as in June after tweets in regards to the Jewish financier George Soros, and once more in September amid Musk’s feud with the ADL. The pair had broadcast their September dialog utilizing X’s dwell audio characteristic, referred to as Areas, and so they did the identical this week in Israel.

The alliance seems to have paid off for Netanyahu already, as Musk agreed in “precept” to present the Israeli authorities management over the usage of Starlink web service in Gaza. Whereas the service could possibly be essential to Palestinian support efforts crippled by widespread communication blackouts, Israeli leaders concern that it will be utilized by Hamas militants.

However Musk’s hopes that folks would get the message that he’s not an antisemite in spite of everything — “Actions converse louder than phrases,” he tweeted — remained largely unfulfilled.

“We’re glad Elon Musk went to Israel, and we encourage each chief to go to to attempt to grasp the horrific ache inflicted by Hamas in opposition to the Jewish state and, in flip, in opposition to the Jewish individuals,” Ted Deutch, CEO of the American Jewish Committee, mentioned in an emailed assertion to The Put up. “And but, as just lately as final week, we had been outraged by Musk’s amplification of antisemitic content material on X. His expertise in Israel ought to trigger him to take away antisemitic content material on X quite than put it on the market. We’ll see.”

Elad Nehorai, a left-leaning commentator who has helped to arrange a marketing campaign by rabbis and different Jewish leaders to name out antisemitism on X, noticed Musk’s conferences with Netanyahu as a “symbiotic relationship, the place they each profit from one another.” Musk will get “a protect in opposition to antisemitism accusations,” whereas Netanyahu will get the assist of the world’s richest man, and considered one of its strongest, because of his possession of Starlink.

However Nehorai mentioned Musk’s assist of Israel shouldn’t absolve him of duty for failing to reasonable antisemitism on X, or for Musk’s personal antisemitic tweets. “This has been a traditional transfer by Republicans and the precise for a very long time: The second they get accused of antisemitism, they state their assist of Israel,” he mentioned.

Nehorai added that some antisemites and white nationalists see assist of a Jewish state as in step with their very own curiosity in marginalizing Jews and different minorities domestically. The tweet that Musk agreed with this month was making the case that “western Jewish populations” are guilty for supporting “hordes of minorities” who’re “flooding their nation” and selling “hatred in opposition to whites.”

It’s too quickly to say for positive whether or not Musk’s Israel go to will assist his trigger with advertisers, mentioned Schreurs of Ebiquity, which he mentioned consults with greater than 70 of the 100 largest promoting spenders globally. If his aim was to place to relaxation their issues about spending on X, Schreurs added, it may have the other impact.

“What manufacturers in any respect prices attempt to keep away from generally is overly politicized content material,” he mentioned. “What he’s doing now with this considerable present of reverence to Netanyahu and assist for his regime is definitely additional politicizing the platform.”

Among the many main world manufacturers that Ebiquity works with, Schreurs mentioned he’s not conscious of a single one which’s nonetheless promoting on X.