On Wednesday, Tesla stock took a hit after Elon Musk agreed with an antisemitic tweet from his personal account. Despite the shock and surprise many felt after reading Musk’s tweet, Chris Hayes, who described his agreement as “shocking and repellent,” has pointed out that the United States has a long history of promoting “notable, powerful American figures” who were “rank antisemites.”
“Antisemitism is dangerous and enduring, even at the very highest levels of American society—there is a history of this,” says @chrislhayes. “The most notorious example is actually a man who is probably the closest historical analogue to Elon Musk in many ways: Henry Ford.” pic.twitter.com/1yJ8Vpc06k
— All In with Chris Hayes (@allinwithchris) November 17, 2023
Of the idea that “Jews are coordinating this assault on whiteness,” Hayes added that it is “so shocking and repellent that Elon Musk, a man of the highest echelons of our society” would believe antisemitic conspiracy theories such as the one he endorsed.
As Hayes put it, “It’s a reminder that antisemitism is dangerous and enduring even at the very highest levels of American society” and “there’s a real history of this in this country.”
Most notable in that history is Henry Ford, who Hayes said was “the closest historical analogue” to Musk and whose “zealousness and viciousness with which” he hated Jews have been “a bit underemphasized in our collect recollection.”
“It’s not an asterisk to Henry Ford’s legacy,” Hayes continued. “It’s right at center. In fact, before the rise of Adolf Hitler, Henry Ford was probably the most powerful antisemite in the world.”
Ford’s antisemitism has been well documented and preserved, often by the man himself. After buying the newspaper The Dearborn Independent in 1919, he began publishing articles in which he claimed a Jewish conspiracy was running rampant throughout the US. The newspaper was distributed throughout the country in Ford’s factories.
Decades later in 1938, the Nazi Party awarded Ford the Grand Cross of the German Eagle. Hitler, who was inspired by Ford’s writings about Jews and both men referenced the “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” a 1903 heavily antisemitic text that was first published in Russia and later taught in German schools despite plenty of evidence the book was entirely fraudulent.
Hayes also cautioned that while “Elon Musk is not at the Henry Ford level… yet,” there are warning signs “emanating from one of the world’s most powerful men, and from society at large. Antisemitism’s on the rise, it’s real, it’s dangerous, and in the case of Elon Musk, it’s just staring us in the face.”
On Tuesday, Musk endorsed a verified account named @breakingbaht, who wrote, “Jewish communities have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.”
They added, “I’m deeply disinterested in giving the tiniest shit now about western Jewish populations coming to the disturbing realization that those hordes of minorities that support flooding their country don’t exactly like them too much. You want truth said to your face, there it is.”
Musk replied, “You have said the actual truth.”
The tweet Musk endorsed appears to be a reference to Great Replacement Theory, a conspiracy theory that posits Jews are attempting to eradicate white people through intermarriage and immigration. The theory has been touted by a number of people who have carried out mass shootings, including the attack at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue.
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