'Hideous lie': White House slams Elon Musk for endorsing antisemitic post

The White House on Friday (local time) hit out at billionaire Elon Musk for endorsing a social media post on antisemitic conspiracy theory, calling it "unacceptable" and a "hideous lie".

On Wednesday, Musk responded to a post on X which claimed that Jews were stoking hatred against the White people, saying, "You have said the actual truth."

White House spokesperson Andrew Bates condemned Musk for his endorsement of the X post and accused him of an "abhorrent promotion of antisemitic and racist hate" that "runs against our core values as Americans".

"It is unacceptable to repeat the hideous lie... one month after the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust," news agency Reuters quoted Bates as saying while referring to Hamas's surprise attack on Israel on October 7.

Musk's reaction to the post appeared to be an endorsement of "white genocide", an antisemitic conspiracy theory, wherein Jews encourage the immigration of "non-White" people to the West in a bid to "eliminate" the White people there. The supposed idea was notoriously adopted by a man who shot dead 11 people at a synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018.

Meanwhile, the war between Israel and Hamas has claimed over 11,000 lives in Gaza, where Israeli troops are conducting a deadly ground assault. Israel has vowed to eliminate Hamas, which rules Gaza.

Ever since the war broke out, there has been a rise in antisemitic incidents in several parts of the world, including the US.

Since October 7, there has been a 388 per cent increase in antisemitic incidents across the US, which includes harassment, vandalism and assault, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a New York-based international Jewish advocacy group.

Between October 7 to 23 this year, 190 of the 312 antisemitic incidents were directly related to the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, the ADL said. During the same period last year, 64 such incidents were reported, of which only four were linked to Israel.