Apple is set to PAUSE advertising on X after Elon Musk backtracks on agreeing with anti-Semitic post – as crisis PR guru says the billionaire faces a ‘career deathwatch’

Apple has halted all advertising on X, formerly known as Twitter, after owner Elon Musk agreed to an anti-Semitic post on the platform.

Musk, 52, sparked a firestorm on Wednesday by responding to a man who claimed on X that: “Jewish communities (sic) have promoted exactly the kind of dialectical hatred of whites that they claim they want people to stop using against them.”

Musk, who has 163 million followers, responded: “You said the actual truth.”

On Friday, Axios reported that Apple would pause its advertising on the platform after 164 Jewish rabbis and activists called on Apple, Google Amazon and Disney to stop advertising on X.

IBM, the European Commission and Lions Gate Entertainment also suspended advertising on the platform in response to Musk’s post.

The news came just after a crisis PR guru claimed Musk was endangering his companies with his personal scandals.

“There is an ongoing career death watch for Elon Musk. Has he finally gone too far? And the answer has been ‘no’ for 52 years, there have been no sanctions,” Eric Dezenhall, chairman of Dezenhall Resources, told CNBC.

“So in terms of what to do, number one is a gut check – does Elon Musk personally feel – as many of his executives no doubt feel – that there is danger here, that there is danger to X, that there is danger? for Tesla, is there danger for SpaceX?

“If he senses personal danger, he’s going to have to deal with what every other company has to deal with – the issue of: do you apologize, when do you apologize, when do you establish policies to prevent this kind of thing from happening? … sign that they are still there.”

On Wednesday, Musk walked back his previous endorsement of an anti-Semitic post, clarifying that he does not believe hatred of white people extends “to all Jewish communities.”

Musk, who has been strongly criticized by the Anti-Defamation League and the Israeli Foreign Ministry for his past comments, subsequently attacked the ADL, accusing them of racism and saying it is “wrongly attacking the majority of the West, despite the majority of the West being the Jewish people and Israel.’

“This is because they cannot, based on their own principles, criticize the minority groups that pose their main threat.” Musk added.

Musk doubled down on his stance against the ADL hours later, writing, “I am deeply offended by the messaging of ADL and all other groups that push de facto anti-white racism or anti-Asian racism or racism of any kind.” I’m done with it. Stop now.’

IBM said this week it would stop advertising on to win.

Liberal advocacy group Media Matters said in a report Thursday that ads from Apple, Oracle, NBCUniversal’s Bravo network and Comcast were also placed next to anti-Semitic material on X.

“IBM will not tolerate hate speech or discrimination and we have immediately suspended all advertising on X while we investigate this completely unacceptable situation,” the company said in a statement.

The European Union’s executive branch said separately Friday that it is halting its advertising on X and other social media platforms, partly due to a wave of hate speech.

The White House released a statement on what it called Musk’s “abhorrent” promotion of anti-Semitism.

“We condemn in the strongest terms this abhorrent promotion of anti-Semitic and racist hatred, which goes against our core values ​​as Americans,” spokesman Andrew Bates said.

“We all have a responsibility to bring people together against hate, and an obligation to speak out against anyone who attacks the dignity of their fellow Americans and endangers the safety of our communities.”

X CEO Linda Yaccarino said X’s position has always been very clear: discrimination by everyone must STOP across the board.

“I think this is something we can and should all agree on,” she posted Thursday.

The accounts that Media Matters has identified as posting anti-Semitic material will no longer be monetized and the specific posts will be labeled “sensitive media,” according to a statement from X. Still

Musk labeled Media Matters “an evil organization.”

The billionaire has a long history of playing with dog-whistle rhetoric about Jewish people, especially George Soros, who angered him in May by selling his Tesla shares.

He has also angered people with his response to the war between Israel and Hamas.

In the days following the October 7 Hamas terror attack, Musk was forced to delete a tweet that recommended an anti-Semitic account and a promoter of debunked videos as reliable sources of information about the attack on Israel.

The owner of

Followers were quick to point out that @WarMonitors has repeatedly used “Jew” as a swear word on the platform and told New York supermarket boss Avi Kaner to “mind your own business, Jew.”

X is not alone in engaging in problematic content since the start of the war between Hamas and Israel.

On Thursday, TikTok removed the hashtag #lettertoamerica after users of the app posted sympathetic videos about Osama bin Laden’s 2002 letter, which justified the terrorist attacks on Americans on September 11 and criticized US support for Israel. The news outlet The Guardian, which published the transcript of the letter that was shared, removed it and replaced it with a statement directing readers to a 2002 news article that it said provided more context.