Is Musk’s visit to Auschwitz the kind of Holocaust remembrance we really want?
Elon Musk and his son Techno Mechanicus at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp Jan. 22. Photo by Yoav Dudkevitch
Contributing Columnist Emily Tamkin January 22, 2024
Elon Musk went to Auschwitz on Monday, along with his young son and far-right pundit Ben Shapiro. He had been invited by Rabbi Menachem Margolin, head of the European Jewish Association, back in September during a Twitter Live event. He initially declined, but, later in the same conversation, offered a “tentative yes.”
Musk and Shapiro were in conversation at the EJA’s conference — “Never Again: Lip Service or Deep Commitment?” — later that day in Krakow, Poland. The annual conference comes ahead of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which is this Saturday.
On the one hand, Monday’s events did bring the memory of the Holocaust to the fore. The photos of Musk outside of Auschwitz were beamed around the world. However, a highly publicized visit to a concentration camp does not, in and of itself, constitute remembrance. I would also argue that the subsequent conversation with Shapiro did not, either.
Because if remembrance means not only to remember that something happened, but also how it happened, and the forces and dynamics that made it possible, then Musk’s visit and conversation with Shapiro do not fit the definition. In fact, they obscured more than they revealed.
I sincerely hope that the visit to Auschwitz was as moving an experience for Musk and his son as Musk said. I hope he took something from it. If nothing else, I hope that it inspires him to stop doing things like agreeing with a person who posted on X, the platform Musk owns, that Jews are “flooding [the] country” with “hordes of minorities. Musk wrote that this person had shared “the absolute truth” in November 2023, after accepting this invitation to Auschwitz.
I am not sure, however, that it will. After the visit to Auschwitz, Musk and Shapiro addressed the conference. Their conversation was preceded with a presentation: a video montage of tweets that could have been sent to spread information about the Holocaust if it were taking place in the time of social media, concluding that X could have saved lives.
Whether social media could have prevented the Holocaust is a weighty question, particularly given that there are those who denied atrocities on Oct. 7 against Israelis, and who have denied atrocities carried out against Gazans since, all on X. But there is another, more direct issue: Musk himself has personally used X to post antisemitic remarks, to say nothing of the criticism that changes in X policies under Musk has led to an increase in antisemitic rhetoric on the platform.
In the actual conversation, Musk half-acknowledged antisemitism and the factors that allow for the persecution of minorities while denying his own role in both. To take one example, Musk spoke in his conversation about the importance of freedom of speech, and the role freedom of speech could have had in preventing the Holocaust. He noted that the First Amendment was first for a reason, but he himself has, apparently without irony, repeatedly attacked the media. (Shapiro, for his part, lauded Musk’s approach to free speech.) This is to say that a person who recognized the importance of free speech in stopping the rise of fascism has personally been attacking expression and reports that are critical of him.
To take another example, Musk claimed that he was naive about the rise in antisemitism, said he was “Jewish by association” and that he himself never hears antisemitism at dinner conversations, “at least in my friend circles.” He pointed instead to “pro-Hamas” protests and universities. Shapiro did not ask Musk about his own antisemitic comments, and instead attacked diversity, equity and inclusion. “We should be wary of any name that sounds like it could come out of a George Orwell book,” Musk said. Shapiro laughed along.
If he thought to himself, as I did, watching the livestream, that Elon Musk speaking at an event on antisemitism and remembrance was itself Orwellian, he did not say. But the idea that antisemitism only comes from universities, students and protesters, and not in the powerful circles in which Elon Musk travels, is untrue. Further, to push the notion that those interested in fighting hate and protecting minority rights, including those of Jews, should be concerned with students instead of those with actual power, including Elon Musk, is to refuse to learn from history.
The two men also agreed that “Elon” is a Jewish name. Musk shared that his social circle is largely Jewish, which may or may not be true, and that he himself is “Jew-ish,” which is both nonsensical, and not an excuse for any of the antisemitic remarks he has posted on social media.
Musk stressed the need for freedom of speech and rigorous pursuit of the truth to defeat historic evil. I agree that rigorous pursuit of the truth is necessary. That’s true of history, and it’s true of present politics. It’s why I think it was wrong — in a factual sense — of Shapiro to conclude by hailing Musk as “a strong moral voice against antisemitism.”
But then, if the standard of rigorous pursuit of the truth had been applied to this event, Musk would not have been on stage discussing antisemitism in any capacity other than as a sometime-practitioner in the first place.
It is, of course, fully the EJA’s prerogative to decide how they want to hold their conference. If they want to have Elon Musk, who has compared Jewish billionaire philanthropist George Soros, who lived through the Holocaust in his native Hungary, to Jewish supervillain Magneto, it’s up to them to select conference speakers. It is their choice to have this conversation at an event on Holocaust remembrance and fighting antisemitism be conducted by Ben Shapiro, who has claimed that Reform Judaism doesn’t take Jewish identity seriously. This is all up to them.
The rest of us, however, have the right to ask whether this is remembrance, and to decide and say clearly that the memory of the Holocaust deserves more than this.
To contact the author, email [email protected].
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