Elon Musk Blames ADL for Lost Twitter Revenue and Bluffs a Lawsuit Threat ⇥ nbcnews.com

Doha Madani, NBC News:

Elon Musk on Monday posted that he was against antisemitism and blamed the Anti-Defamation League for lost advertising revenue since his acquisition of X, formerly known as Twitter.

The tech mogul posted his stance on free speech and antisemitism seemingly out of the blue on his verified account Monday afternoon. When asked by a user who was questioning his stance, Musk alleged that the ADL has been “trying to kill this platform by falsely accusing it & me of being anti-Semitic.”

[…]

The ADL said Monday that as a matter of policy it does not comment on legal threats. A spokesperson referred NBC News to a general statement the organization made in response to a recent #BanTheADL campaign on the platform, which Musk has engaged with.

When I opened Twitter today to look into this, the first advertisement I saw was for a show on Apple TV Plus. According to the “why this ad?” screen, the reason I saw the ad was because I am over 25 years old, and I am in Canada; it does not appear that it had anything to do with the device I was using it on, for example.

It could not be clearer whose pockets are lined by a Twitter ad spend: it is a private platform with, nominally, a single owner who happens to be the richest man on Earth yet pretends to be some kind of heterodox underdog deep thinker, fighting a supposed establishment — of which he is somehow not part of — with his contrarian ideas. Nonsense. This is not considered thinking; it is scapegoating from a conspiracy poisoned brain. It seems inconsistent, at the very least, with Apple’s professed values to continue giving money to this caustic rich lunkhead. The ADL may be an imperfect activist organization but it is pretty clear which audience is thrilled with the new Twitter direction.

Does Apple really want to pay to place its ads between posts like these?