Elon Musk told CNBC’s David Faber on Tuesday that he doesn’t care if his inflammatory tweets scare off prospects Tesla buyers or advertisers on Twitter.
“I’m going to say what I want, and if it means losing money, so be it,” said Musk, who owns Twitter.
For years, Musk has tweeted controversial items, including conspiracy theories and comments that his critics have called broadly discriminatory.
His defense came after Musk was again criticized tweet in which he compared liberal billionaire and Democratic donor George Soros to X-Men villain MagnetoJewish holocaust survivor.
“He wants to erode the very fabric of civilization. Soros hates humanity,” Musk wrote on Twitter on Monday.
Musk has previously criticized Soros, whose family office, Management of the Soros Fundrecently reduce its stake in Tesla. Soros, who is also Jewish, is a favorite target of right-wing scholars and politicians and is often the subject of anti-Semitic attacks. Soros and his family fled the Nazis during World War II.
Critics said Musk’s tweets about Soros fit into a broader pattern of attacks on the 92-year-old investor and Democratic donor. “Musk’s comparison of Soros to Magneto is no accident; it’s a nod to the noxious anti-Semitic tropes of Jewish global control,” he tweeted. Alex Goldenberganalyst at the Network Contagion Research Institute. Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairssimilarly, he said Musk’s tweets had “anti-Semitic undertones”.
Musk denied on Tuesday that he was anti-Semitic. “I’m a prosemite, if anything,” he said when Faber asked him about the criticism. Musk has also tweeted and deleted before memes using Hitler.
Faber also asked Musk on Tuesday why he tweeted a link to someone who said the mass shooting at a Texas mall earlier this month could be part of an “evil psychopath” or a “psych operation.”
Investigators were looking into whether the gunman who was killed by police was expressing white supremacist views since he wore a “RWDS” patch, a reference to the phrase “Right Wing Death Squad.” which is used by extremists. He had too Nazi tattooincluding the swastika.
“I thought the attribution of white supremacy was bulls—,” Musk said, adding that he thought there was no evidence the shooter was white supremacist. “We shouldn’t attribute things to white supremacy if they are — if it’s false.”
Since Musk took over Twitter last fall, the social media network has seen a sharp decline in ad revenue as brands and companies weigh in on changes to the platform and some call for its outspoken new owner.
Last week, Musk hired the former head of advertising at NBCUniversal Linda Yaccarino to replace him as Twitter’s CEO, a move widely seen as a way to jump-start Twitter’s advertising business. She started on Sunday.
Disclosure: NBCUniversal is the parent company of CNBC.
– CNBC’s Lora Kolodny contributed to this report.