LONDON — British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said antisemitism is “wrong in all its forms” after X owner Elon Musk was criticized for sharing a conspiracy theory-laden post on the social media platform.
The U.K. prime minister — who recently shared a platform with the tech billionaire at the U.K.’s AI summit — declined to directly take aim at Musk in an interview Sunday night.
But he put distance between himself and the X owner’s social media activity, which drew condemnation from the White House earlier this month.
Musk sparked controversy when he wrote that a post on the platform formerly known as Twitter “said the actual truth.” He was replying to a user who posted an antisemitic claim that Jewish communities have been “pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.”
Pressed on those remarks, Sunak told Bloomberg TV: “I don’t tend to get in the business of scrutinizing what every single person says who I’ve interacted with, of course I abhor antisemitism.”
But he added: “I condemn antisemitism in all it’s forms, it doesn’t matter whether you’re Elon Musk or you’re someone on the street who is shouting abuse at someone who happens to be walking past you.”
White House spokesperson Andrew Bates took aim at Musk earlier this month, saying the Biden administration condemns “this abhorrent promotion of Antisemitic and racist hate in the strongest terms.”
“It is unacceptable to repeat the hideous lie behind the most fatal act of Antisemitism in American history at any time, let alone one month after the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust,” Bates wrote.