ADL’s Greenblatt hits reverse on comparing Elon Musk to Henry Ford

JTA – Jonathan Greenblatt, the chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League, is having second thoughts about holding up a notorious hater of Jews as an exemplar of American genius.

Speaking on CNBC Friday morning, Greenblatt praised Henry Ford, perhaps the most notorious American antisemite and someone he has previously criticised, as an antecedent for a certain contemporary car manufacturer.

“Elon Musk, an amazing entrepreneur and extraordinary innovator, is the Henry Ford of our time,” Greenblatt said about the prospect of Musk taking over social media behemoth Twitter.

“He’s taken on huge, complex tasks that no one thought could be solved like rocketry or mobility or solar,” Greenblatt said about Musk. “And to think what he can do with the public square. I mean, I’d certainly have some qualms about just a handful of companies controlling so much of the public debate, but I’m hopeful the regulators will give this a chance.”

It was a jarring analogy. After all, Google “Henry Ford + the Anti-Defamation League” and you might get a deep dive into how the automotive pioneer was one of the lead purveyors of virulent antisemitism a century or so ago. Or an analysis of whether his company profited from Nazi slave labour. In 2020, Greenblatt called on then-President Donald Trump to apologise for praising Ford.

It was also a 180-degree turn for Greenblatt and the ADL on Musk’s intended Twitter acquisition. In April, when Musk revealed his intentions, the ADL posted an analysis titled, “Elon Musk plans to buy Twitter. Right-wing extremists rejoice.”  Greenblatt promoted the piece on Twitter, saying it was a “key perspective to pay attention to”. Indeed, there has been widespread apprehension among Jewish officials at the prospect of Musk, who has derided the weeding out of hate speech, controlling Twitter.

After a backlash on Twitter (where else), Greenblatt said he might have made a more apt comparison. “Admittedly, the Henry Ford reference was wrong even though he was an innovator in the automobile industry. I certainly wasn’t trying to praise Ford and didn’t intend to minimise his contemptible antisemitism in any way,” he said in a statement to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

But he added that he stood by his praise for Musk in fields outside social media, and said Musk’s success in his previous ventures meant he could set high expectations for Musk’s Twitter ownership.

“While I could have been much clearer, I was laying down a gauntlet about what we expect Elon Musk to do,” Greenblatt said. “As I have been saying for months, we have serious concerns about how Musk will handle hate and harassment on the platform. As I’ve stated publicly repeatedly, we want to be cautiously optimistic about how Musk will run the platform because he successfully has innovated other industries and tackled incredibly complex problems. I would implore him to apply an equal level of effort and resources, not just to optimising the business model, but to turning around the toxicity so rampant on Twitter and improving public discourse as a result.”

Musk is on the hook to complete his purchase of Twitter by 28 October to avoid a trial over his past effort to back out of the deal. He must finalize $44 billion (R796 billion) in financing by then.

Published with permission from jta.org