Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis is refusing to sentence Elon Musk ‘s post endorsing an antisemitic conspiracy theory, maintaining Sunday that he wasn’t accustomed to the put up regardless of it prompting main firms to tug promoting from the billionaire’s X social media platform.
“I did not see the comment,” DeSantis, the governor of Florida, stated on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “And so, I know that Elon has had a target on his back ever since he purchased Twitter because I think he’s taking it in a direction that a lot of people who are used to controlling the narrative don’t like.”
Musk has sparked outcry with a latest tweet responding to a person who accused Jews of hating white individuals and for professing a basic indifference to antisemitism. “You have said the actual truth,” Musk tweeted in a reply Wednesday.
IBM, Disney and different main advertisers have since pulled funding from X, a significant blow because the platform previously often called Twitter tries to win again huge manufacturers and their advert {dollars} that represent its important income.
DeSantis introduced his presidential bid on Musk’s platform, whilst some analysis exhibits it has develop into a haven for hate speech because the billionaire took over the corporate final yr. “State of the Union” put Musk’s put up on the display screen and host Jake Tapper learn it to DeSantis earlier than urgent him to sentence it — however the governor continued to demur.
“I know you tried to read it. I have no idea what the context is,” stated DeSantis who was becoming a member of the present by way of videoconference. “I know Elon Musk. I have never seen him do anything. I think he’s a guy that believes in America. I have never seen him indulge in any of that. So it’s surprising, if that’s true, but I have not seen it. So I don’t want to sit there and pass judgment on the fly.”
The governor additionally stated he opposes antisemitism “across the board,” irrespective of if it comes from the suitable or left of the ideological spectrum.
“It’s wrong no matter what,” DeSantis stated.
The put up has drawn criticism from the White Home, the place spokesperson Andrew Bates stated final week that, “It is unacceptable to repeat the hideous lie behind the most fatal act of antisemitism in American history at any time, let alone one month after the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust.”
That referred to Hamas’ lethal assault on Israel, which occurred on Oct. 7.
Showing on Tapper’s present in individual instantly after DeSantis, Maryland Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin stated it wasn’t credible to consider that somebody working for president didn’t see Musk’s put up: “This is four days later and he has not had a chance to read what Elon Musk wrote?”
“That is very hard for me to believe,” Raskin stated. “In any event you showed it to him, and he still refused to condemn it.”
“If you’re serous about condemning and confronting antisemitism and racism and these bigotries, which are the gateways to destruction of liberal democracy, you’ve got to be explicit and open and full-throated about it,” Raskin added “and you’ve got to denounce the antisemitism and racism across the board.”
Raskin himself referred to as the put up “outrageous and dangerous,” and urged that he and different members of the Home deliberate to write down to Musk “to ask him to renounce those comments and to clean up his act.”