Elon Musk Set To Visit Auschwitz Months After Backing Anti-Semitic Tweet

Tesla CEO Elon Musk will be visiting the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland this week, according to the European Jewish Association.

The billionaire, who was under fire last year for backing an anti-Semitic tweet on the X platform, will be taking part in an event discussing anti-Semitism.

The two-day event is scheduled to start on Monday to discuss "the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe" since Hamas's brutal attack in Israel. Musk is set to appear at a symposium in Krakow with commentator Ben Shapiro. The participants will then visit Auschwitz on Tuesday, per The Independent.

His visit to Poland comes one week before International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau in German-occupied Poland, where around 1.5 million people, most of them Jews, were murdered by the Nazis between 1940 and 1945.

Musk received criticism from all quarters in November last year for calling a post "the actual truth" that said Jewish communities advocated a "dialectical hatred against whites".

It began after an X user posted a video wherein a father could be seen lashing out at his son for putting out posts against Jewish communities.

"To the cowards hiding behind the anonymity of the internet and posting 'Hitler was right'," the caption with the video reads, "You got something you want to say? Why don't you say it to our faces..."

Another user, @breakingbaht, responded to the post by saying: "Jewish communities have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them."

"You want truth said to your face, there it is," the user added. Musk was quick to support @breakingbaht's argument.

In a reply to his tweet, Musk wrote: "You have said the actual truth." Musk's support of the tweet did not go down well with X users. Even the White House condemned his comments.

He later had to issue an apology for the same. "I'm sorry for that tweet or post," Musk said. "It was foolish of me". He described it as "one of the most foolish" things he had done on the platform.

There has been a significant increase in hate speech and anti-Semitic incidents since the beginning of Israel's offensive in Gaza. Anti-Semitism is on the rise in European countries like France and Germany as well, and Jews fear backlash after Israel retaliated to the Hamas attack.

More than 1,500 anti-Semitic acts and comments have been reported in France since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war in October. It is not just France but countries like the UK and Canada that have also reported several anti-Semitic incidents.