IBM pulls ads from X/Twitter as Elon Musk promotes anti-Semitic conspiracy
Just hours after Elon Musk endorsed an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory on Wednesday night, a new report uncovered advertisements from major companies being placed on pro-Nazi content on X, Musk’s platform, formerly known as Twitter.
As of Thursday evening, one of those companies, IBM, has officially paused all advertising on X.
“IBM has zero tolerance for hate speech and discrimination and we have immediately suspended all advertising on X while we investigate this entirely unacceptable situation,” IBM said in a statement to outlets such as the Financial Times and The Verge.
On Wednesday, Musk replied to a post from a user spreading an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that claims Jewish people are replacing whites with immigrants from minority groups.
“You have said the actual truth,” replied Musk in a post that now has nearly 6 million views on X.
In subsequent posts, Musk doubled down, explicitly naming organizations like the ADL, which he accused of refusing to “criticize the minority groups who are their primary threat.”
Musk’s handpicked CEO for X, Linda Yaccarino, appeared to address the criticism of Musk’s posts in a post of her own on Thursday afternoon.
“X’s point of view has always been very clear that discrimination by everyone should STOP across the board — I think that’s something we can and should all agree on,” Yaccarino said. “When it comes to this platform — X has also been extremely clear about our efforts to combat antisemitism and discrimination. There’s no place for it anywhere in the world — it’s ugly and wrong. Full stop.”
However, just hours before Yaccarino vaguely addressed anti-Semitism on X, Media Matters For America published a new report that found advertisements from major companies being served on pro-Nazi content on X.
The report found that ads from companies such as IBM, Apple, Oracle, Xfinity, and Bravo were being run on content that promoted Nazis and shared positive messages about Hitler. As previously mentioned, IBM has already announced it was pausing its ad campaigns on the platform.
It should be noted that this is far from the first time that this has occurred. Mashable previously reported on a Media Matters study just a few months ago that found ads from companies such as Amazon, FIFA, Samsung, MLB, Sports Illustrated, and Adobe being shown alongside pro-Hitler, pro-Nazi content on X.
