Elon Musk brought more attention to his online escapades Monday by amplifying the Pizzagate conspiracy on his X platform.
A user on X tried to link the owner of “Pizzagate restaurant” with the owner of Media Matters, the left-leaning media watchdog that has accused X and Mr. Musk of promoting antisemitic rumors.
Mr. Musk brought the post to his 160 million followers and added “weird.”
Pizzagate is a conspiracy theory that popped up on 4chan and Reddit just before the 2016 presidential election that falsely claimed a D.C.-area pizza restaurant was running a child sex trafficking operation from its basement. The canard implicated Hillary Clinton and other prominent Democrats. The Pizzagate saga ended after the election when Edgar Maddison Welch fired an assault rifle into the restaurant.
Pizzagate is the latest conspiracy theory that has caught Mr. Musk’s eye. Last week, he drew the ire of advertisers, the media and the White House after he agreed with a post that accused Jewish communities of pushing the flood of immigration. Mr. Musk has also boosted rumors related to the Russia-Ukraine war, the attack on Paul Pelosi and the COVID-19 pandemic.
In response, several high-profile advertisers, including Disney and Paramount, have suspended their ads on X.
Mr. Musk has denied he’s antisemitic, saying that “nothing could be further from the truth.”
• Vaughn Cockayne can be reached at vcockayne@washingtontimes.com.
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