Elon Musk accused the Anti-Defamation League of "fighting yesterday's battles" after it objected to his planned reinstatement of white nationalist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes' account on the social media website X.
In a Saturday post on X, Musk — who bought the site formerly known as Twitter in 2022 — implicitly defended his decision to reverse Fuente's January 2023 suspension over alleged antisemitic posts.
"ADL is still fighting yesterday's battles," the billionaire Tesla CEO and self-described "free speech absolutist" wrote.
Less than an hour later, Fuentes chimed in, "ADL lost, Patriots won."
Fuentes, who in 2022 dined with former President Donald Trump and the rapper formerly known as Kanye West at Trump's Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, also thanked Musk "for reinstating my account and upholding your commitment to free speech."
Fuentes has been banned from several social media sites, and his most recent suspension from X came one day after he was reinstated after two earlier suspensions.
On Thursday, Musk agreed to an anonymous X user's demand to "Bring Nick Fuentes back on Twitter," telling Musk, "He has been banned since 2021, what happened to your promise big guy?"
Musk responded, "Very well, he will be reinstated, provided he does not violate the law, and let him be crushed by the comments and Community Notes."
"It is better to have anti whatever out in the open to be rebutted than grow simmering in the darkness," Musk said.
The announcement prompted the ADL to say it was "concerned that white supremacist influencer Nick Fuentes may be officially welcomed back on X."
"While ADL recognizes the right to free speech, we must also sound the alarm on hate and antisemitism in all its form," the group wrote on X.
The ADL only allows accounts it follows or mentions to respond to its posts, so Musk and Fuentes both responded to a screenshot of the ADL's message that was posted by another X user.
