An ‘Official Organization’ on X Is Just Openly Glorifying Hitler Now

A suspicious account on X with 35,000 followers and a gold checkmark, ostensibly reserved for verified “official organizations”, is openly glorifying Adolf Hitler as site owner Elon Musk battles accusations of antisemitism.

The account is called “Defund Israel Now” and, despite having a gold check, it does not appear to be an actual organization. It has a barebones website that was registered in November, according to online records, and only points back to an X account. When Musk took over Twitter, he gutted the site’s verification system and replaced it with a subscriber model. Any account on X can obtain an “official organization” gold badge by paying a few hundred dollars a month. 

The account purports to support Palestine, but, like other U.S. far-right figures on X such as Jackson Hinkle who pivoted after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, only does so to promote outright antisemitism. In the past 24 hours, the account has glorified Hitler numerous times. 

Eyes on the Right spotted that on Wednesday the account posted a clip from a Hitler speech with the caption, “Hitler encouraging German citizens to help themselves, rich or poor. Thoughts?” The account also posted another Hitler speech clip, which has since been deleted. In a Thursday post containing a screenshot of the post showing it was restricted for violating rules around hateful speech, they wrote, “So Hitler talking about the state of Germany 80 years ago is violent speech…??? Nothing in the video was even remotely violent.” A post from Thursday reads, “Henry Kissinger (Jewish) was responsible for more deaths & killings than Adolf Hitler (German), yet one is demonized and one is praised. Go figure.” The account also replied to a post comparing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Hitler, calling the comment an “insult to Hitler.” 

It’s unclear what’s going on here, but the episode is indicative of a trend where antisemitic and white nationalist groups capitalize on X’s freewheeling paid verification systems to promote their views. Defund Israel Now has been the subject of previous reporting, as well as other groups such as “Stop Zionist Hate,” which is a gold-verified account with 125,000 followers despite only having a barebones webpage with links to various social media accounts. That account has been linked by journalists to a network of white nationalist propaganda accounts on social media. 

Musk has been on a PR offensive in recent weeks to stave off accusations of antisemitism both personal and on the platform he owns. In November he posted that a vile antisemitic conspiracy theory was “the actual truth,” which he later called his “dumbest post” before telling advertisers turned off by his actions to “go fuck [themselves].” Since then, Musk has visited Israel, spoken with Netanyahu, and most recently done a photo op at the Auschwitz Museum, where he claimed he has many Jewish friends. 

X did not respond to Motherboard’s request for comment besides an automatic reply.