Elon Musk is known for being brash and abrasive, but he really put his foot in it this time when he very publicly insulted George Soros. The condemnations of Elon Musk have been swift, as well as the lack of shock at what was said considering the source. And George Soros, as usual, remains aloof.
So, what exactly happened?
Well, on Twitter Elon Musk was unhappy that George Soros dumped his Tesla stock so Soros went on Twitter and said about what George Soros does, “You assume they are good intentions. They are not. He wants to erode the very fabric of civilization. Soros hates humanity.”
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Then, Musk went even further and compared his fellow billionaire George Soros to the villain from the X Men comics, Magneto. And this was not the same as comparing someone to other comic book villains like The Joker and Lex Luther, or even Darth Vader. This is because Magneto – in the comics – is not just a mutant and the bad guy, he is a Holocaust survivor who lost his family and fears the way people react to mutants because he knows the consequences of being part of a different group of people.
George Soros is a Holocaust survivor.
Writing in the Atlantic, Yair Rosenberg said, “This is the language of anti-Semitism through the ages, which perpetually casts powerful Jewish actors as the embodiment of social and political ill. Rather than treat Jews like humans, who are fallible and often mistaken, this mindset refashions them into sinister superhumans who intentionally impose their malign designs on the masses.”
The New Republic said, “Elon Musk has gone all in on the classic conservative anti-Semitic trope of blaming George Soros for everything, seemingly all because the older billionaire sold his Tesla stock.”
And, as usual, George Soros has taken this well and not reacted. He is used to this type of slander. He has been attacked viciously by conservatives over the years because of his politics.
Why is George Soros so reviled by America’s political right? They not only continue to demonize him as a former Nazi collaborator, but they also charge that he is a Communist because Soros funds a movement to restore democracy in Hungary. And Fox News seems to be obsessed with the fact that his son Alexander Soros is a frequent visitor to the White House.
George Soros has also been slandered by people falsely stating he was in the Hitler Youth as a teen.
For the record, George Soros was a teenage boy living in Hungary during World War II when his family sent him into hiding with a Christian family. To survive, Soros, who was only 15 when the war ended, had no choice but to join the local Hungarian fascist youth movement, not the Hitler youth.
To accuse the man of being a Nazi collaborator is inherently anti-Semitic.
Elon Musk should know this. Unfortunately, he seems to think that this all a matter of his right to freedom of speech. But this has nothing to do with free speech. It’s about common decency and behaving like a human being. Apparently, Musk just doesn’t get it.