Elon Musk visited the site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp Monday, following accusations the billionaire allowed and promoted antisemitic content on his social media platform X, formerly Twitter.
Musk was photographed Monday at the Holocaust death camp site in Oswiecim, Poland, alongside Daily Wire podcaster Ben Shapiro, ahead of an antisemitism conference organized by the European Jewish Association (EJA) in Krakow, Poland. The pair were set to discuss antisemitism online at the conference.
Birkenau, a village near Oswiecim in southern Poland, is fenced off with barbed wire and still shows the wooden barracks and a gas chamber prisoners were subjected to under Nazi control.
Musk was originally expected to visit the death camp Tuesday for a memorial service, but he came Monday instead, The Associated Press reported.
“Due to schedule concerns, before Elon Musk’s arrival to the European Jewish Association conference, he took part in a private visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau with EJA Chairman Rabbi Menachem Margolin, Ben Shapiro and Holocaust survivor Gidon Lev. Musk laid a wreath at the wall of death and took part in a short memorial ceremony and service by the Birkenau memorial,” the EJA said in an email, per the AP.
The visit comes as Musk has faced allegations from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a Jewish civil rights organization, and others of endorsing antisemitic messages on the platform and not enforcing strict enough moderation policies to prevent circulation of such content.
Musk came under fierce criticism in November after appearing to endorse an antisemitic conspiracy theory that Jewish people want to flood Western countries with minorities and are therefore responsible to the rising antisemitism in these societies.
“You have said the actual truth,” Musk replied to the post.
Musk later went after the ADL, claiming the group “unjustly attacks the majority of the West, despite the majority of the West supporting the Jewish people and Israel.”
The White House at the time spoke out against Musk’s apparent endorsement of the post, calling it “unacceptable.”
A number of major companies, including Disney, Apple, IBM and Paramount, pulled their advertisements from X, following a report from liberal watchdog Media Matters for America that claimed it found ads from several companies placed next to posts celebrating Aldolf Hitler and the Nazi Party on the platform.
Musk told the advertisers to “go f‑‑‑ yourself” at The New York Times DealBook Summit in November.