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IBM said it was immediately pulling advertising from Elon Musk‘s X, formerly known as Twitter, after a report found that ads for the tech giant had appeared next to posts supporting Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party.
“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,” a company rep said in a statement to Variety. The news was first reported Thursday by the Financial Times.
IBM was among five major brands that progressive watchdog group Media Matters said it had found ads for adjacent to posts that “tout Hitler and his Nazi Party” on X. The others were Apple, NBCUniversal’s Bravo, Oracle and Comcast’s Xfinity.
Separately, Musk earlier Thursday, in response to someone who posted on X that “Everyone is allowed to be proud of their race, except for white people, because we’ve been brainwashed into believing that our history was somehow “worse” than that of other races,” said that was “super messed up” and added, “Time for this nonsense to end and shame ANYONE who perpetuates these lies!”
That came after Musk on Wednesday agreed with another X user pushing the conspiracy theory that Jewish communities have stoked “hatred against whites” and said they were “deeply disinterested in giving the tiniest shit now about western Jewish populations” facing “hordes of minorities that support flooding their country.” To that, Musk commented, “You have said the actual truth.” CNN anchor Jake Tapper posted a screenshot of the exchange, with the comment, “Elon Musk pushing unvarnished anti semitism at a time of rising antisemitism and violence against Jews.”
That came after Musk in May 2023 wrote on Twitter, “Soros reminds me of Magneto,” comparing billionaire financier and philanthropist George Soros to the Jewish supervillain from Marvel’s X-Men series. Musk said Soros “wants to erode the very fabric of civilization. Soros hates humanity.” Musk’s comparison of Soros to Magneto drew a rebuke from Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, who noted, “Soros often is held up by the far-right, using antisemitic tropes, as the source of the world’s problems.”
In a post Thursday afternoon, X CEO Linda Yaccarino wrote, “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. 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.”
Last month, X notified employees eligible for stock grants that they would receive shares at a valuation of $19 billion — less than half the $42 billion that Musk acquired Twitter for.
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