Elon Musk to meet with Israeli leaders on Monday

Elon Musk, the tech entrepreneur accused by civil rights groups of amplifying anti-Jewish hatred on his X social media platform, will meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli President Isaac Herzog in Israel on Monday, Channel 12 TV said on Sunday.

An Israeli source confirmed the visit by Musk, a billionaire who also runs Tesla and SpaceX. Spokespeople for Tesla and X, formerly known as Twitter, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Musk’s visit coincides with a four-day truce in the Israel-Hamas war, which was triggered by Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist incursion into southern Israel.

Netanyahu met Musk in California on Sept. 18 and urged him to strike a balance between protecting free expression and fighting hate speech after weeks of controversy over antisemitic content on X.

Musk responded by saying he was against antisemitism and against anything that “promotes hate and conflict,” repeating his previous statements that X would not promote hate speech.

On Nov. 15, Musk agreed with a post on X that falsely claimed Jewish people were stoking hatred against white people, saying the user who referenced the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory was speaking “the actual truth.”

The White House condemned what it called an “abhorrent promotion of antisemitic and racist hate” that “runs against our core values as Americans.”

Major U.S. companies including Walt Disney, Warner Bros Discovery and NBCUniversal parent Comcast paused their advertisements on his social media site.

Antisemitism and Islamophobia have risen in the United States and worldwide, including during the now seven-week-old war between Israel and Hamas terrorists.

Following the outbreak of war, antisemitic incidents in the United States rose by nearly 400 percent from the year-earlier period, according to the Anti-Defamation League, a nonprofit organization that fights antisemitism.

Israel Hayom is owned by the Adelson family, including Dr. Miriam Adelson, which also owns the Review-Journal.