Tech titan Elon Musk visited the site of a former concentration camp Monday as he continues to fight accusations of antisemitism.
Musk, who runs SpaceX and Tesla and owns X, the site formerly known as Twitter, has recently lost key advertisers on the social media site due to his own statements about the Jewish community and his apparent tolerance of antisemitic comments from others, according to The Associated Press.
“Several big brands, including Disney and IBM, stopped advertising on (X) last year after liberal advocacy group Media Matters said that their ads were appearing alongside pro-Nazi content and white nationalist posts. X has since sued Media Matters,” the article said.
Musk has repeatedly pushed back against claims that he’s antisemitic or that he allows antisemitism to flourish on X, as the Deseret News previously reported.
In September, he tweeted that he’s against antisemitism but in favor of free speech.
Later that same month, Musk met with Benjamin Netanyahu during the Israeli prime minister’s visit to California.
Visiting Auschwitz
On Monday, Musk toured the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi death camp in Oswiecim, Poland, with podcaster Ben Shapiro before both men attended a conference on antisemitism in Krakow, per The Associated Press.
The former concentration camp, which is better known as Auschwitz, was “the principal” camp used by Nazi Germany in its mission to imprison and kill Jews, according to UNESCO, which now considers Auschwitz-Birkenau to be a world heritage site.
“According to historical investigations, 1.5 million people, among them a great number of Jews, were systematically starved, tortured and murdered in this camp,” UNESCO reports.
Today, most of the remains of the Auschwitz camp are open to visitors. Among other things, visitors can see the bunks where prisoners slept and the bathrooms they used, the Auschwitz-Birkenau website explains.
Musk and Shapiro took part in a private tour and had the opportunity to meet with a Holocaust survivor, according to The Associated Press.
On X, Musk reposted a picture of himself on the tour, as well as a video clip from his appearance at the antisemitism conference.