(TheConservativeNews.org) – SpaceX, Tesla and Twitter CEO Elon Musk did not back down when pressed during a Tuesday CNBC interview on expressing his negative views of left-wing financier George Soros.
Musk sat down with CNBC’s David Faber following Tesla’s annual stockholders’ meeting in Austin, Texas. Faber asked how the entrepreneur chooses when to engage on Twitter.
Faber pointed to Musk’s Monday tweet about Soros in which he wrote that the Hungarian native reminds him of the comic book villain Magneto.
Faber wanted to know why Musk posted that view online, noting the Twitter chief later wrote that Soros “hates humanity.”
“I think that’s true. That’s my opinion,” Musk said.
“Why share it widely?” the interviewer asked.
“I mean, this is freedom of speech. I’m allowed to say what I want,” Musk responded.
Faber followed up by arguing, “It puts you in the middle of the partisan divide in the country. It makes you a lightning rod for criticism.”
“People today [are] saying, ‘He’s an anti-Semite,’” the CNBC host added.
Musk denied the accusation, saying, “I’m like a pro-Semite, if anything.”
In a post from Wednesday, Hikind, who serves as chairman of Americans Against Antisemitism (AAA), highlighted the error of automatically attributing any criticism of the Democrat megadonor to antisemitism.
His remarks followed Musk’s comparison of Soros to the notorious X-Men villain Magneto who draws on his experiences as a Holocaust survivor to motivate his hatred for humanity.
“[Elon Musk] is absolutely entitled to criticize Soros without being labeled an antisemite!” Hiking argued.
“Soros is not beyond critique by dint of his being Jewish and Elon didn’t mention anything about Soros’s religion,” he added. “Using ‘antisemitism’ to insulate Soros is sick!”
Musk doubled down on his comment Wednesday afternoon, writing: “I’d like apologize for this post. It was really unfair to Magneto.”
Though Soros, one of the most important political donors on the left, is technically Jewish, he is not active in Jewish organizations — aside from radical groups like J Street, which opposes Israeli policies.
He has been accused of funding dozens of radical prosecutors nationwide, some who have pursued policies of “criminal justice reform” that have coincided with a shocking rise in violent crime in many American cities.
