Musk defends attack on Soros: 'Calm down people'

Outgoing Twitter CEO Elon Musk defended comments he made about billionaire George Soros on the platform earlier this week that drew charges of anti-semitism from critics, saying “calm down people.”

Musk tweeted on Monday that Soros, a Democratic megadonor who is frequently a target of criticism from the right, “reminds me of Magneto,” referring to the primary adversary in Marvel’s X-Men comics who is also portrayed to be a Holocaust survivor. Soros, who is Jewish, survived the Holocaust.

“You assume they are good intentions. They are not,” Musk later added of Soros in response to a reply from another user. “He wants to erode the very fabric of civilization. Soros hates humanity.”

Musk said Tuesday in an interview with CNBC that people needed to “calm down” over his remarks.

“I said he reminds me of Magneto,” Musk said in the interview. “This is like, you know, calm down people. Let’s not like make a metaphorical case out of it.”

When pressed on the fact that he said Soros “hates humanity,” Musk defended the comment: “Yeah I think that’s true, that’s my opinion.” Musk labeled himself “like a pro-semite, if anything.”

Musk said that he did not care whether his controversial comments affected his businesses, including Twitter and Tesla. 

“I’ll say what I want to say and if the consequence of that is losing money, so be it,” Musk said.

Soros comes as he has announced the hiring of a new CEO for Twitter and said he will step down from the position. He told shareholders this week that he was not stepping down as CEO of Tesla.