Elon Musk visits site of Auschwitz Nazi German death camp

Elon Musk, an American billionaire businessman, tech entrepreneur and social media X owner, visited the Auschwitz death camp in Poland, infamous for the genocide of Jews. He is accompanied by American lawyer, author and political analyst Ben Shapiro.

X has been accused of spreading anti-Semitism in the wake of the Gaza conflict. About which there is a strong debate. Elon Musk himself has been embroiled in this controversy. As a result, some technologies refuse to advertise on X.

Amidst these controversies, on Monday (January 22) Twitter boss Elon went to visit Poland's Auschwitz death camp with Ben Shapiro. According to a BBC report, European Jewish leaders urged Elon to visit the Auschwitz death camp, one of the sites of the Holocaust.

Responding to that call, Elon Musk visited the death camp. During World War II Nazi forces opened a concentration camp here in 1940. In German-occupied Europe, those who opposed the influence of the Nazi forces at that time were captured and held in those camps.

About 1.1 million people were victims of holocaust and tragic genocide in this camp. One million of them are Jews. According to the Auschwitz Museum, 200,000 of them were children and young adults.  

After visiting the death camps, Elon spoke at a conference on anti-Semitism. The conference was organized by a Jewish organization called the European Jewish Association (EJA). 

Participating in the conference with Ben Shapiro, Elon Musk said “I grew up around a lot of Jewish people, I went to Hebrew preschool -- my name is pretty Jewish.”  

“I went to Israel when I was 13 -- most of my friends are Jewish, sometimes I forget 'Am I Jewish?', I'm Jew-ish, aspirationally Jewish.”

The debate actually broke down weeks after Gaza conflict. In November the Tesla boss, who took over the platform in October 2022, faced accusations of antisemitism when he replied, "You have said the actual truth" to a post on X that made the false claim that Jewish communities push hatred against white people.

The White House immediately condemned his post, which drew anger online. As a punishment, Apple, Disney and IBM paused ads on X.

In response, the entrepreneur has accused advertisers of attempting to "blackmail" him with money, and used expletive filled language to express his disdain for their actions.

And then Mr Musk said the endorsement was a mistake, describing it as "one of the most foolish" things he had done on the platform.

Later in November Mr Musk visited Israel and joined Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on a tour of the Kfar Aza kibbutz targeted by Hamas as part of the 7 October attacks in which 1,139 people were killed and about 240 taken back to Gaza as hostages.

During his visit to Israel, Musk expressed shock upon seeing the decimated kibbutz of Kfar Aza, saying that Israel had “no choice” but to eliminate Hamas.

In that time Hamas invited Elon Musk to the Gaza Strip to witness the scope of the devastation caused by Israel’s bombardment, but the tech billionaire didn’t visit Gaza, said it was “dangerous there right now”.