Elon Musk’s credentials as a “free speech absolutist” came into question over the weekend after the X owner elevated an antisemitic campaign to ban the Anti-Defamation League from his social media site.
Perhaps we should run a poll on this? Musk tweeted on Saturday, responding to a notorious extremist pundit, who noted that #BanTheADL was trending on the site formerly known as Twitter.
The Tesla CEO made the eyebrow-raising tweet after he also liked a post from hard-right YouTube influencer Keith Woods, who said the ADL is financially blackmailing social media companies into removing free speech on their platform.
Musk replied to the tweet from Woods, saying that the ADL has tried very hard to strangle X/Twitter.
On Monday, Musk tried to calm the uproar over his tweet.
“To be super clear, I’m pro free speech, but against antisemitism of any kind” Musk said.
The campaign to ban the ADL came a day after a meeting last Wednesday between Xs CEO Linda Yaccarino and ADLs President Jonathan Greenblatt over the social media site’s moderation of hate speech.
Greenblatt tweeted that he had a very frank + productive conversation with Yaccarino about where X needs to go to address hate effectively on the platform.
Greenblatt also said his group will be vigilant and give her and @ElonMusk credit if the service gets better and reserve the right to call them out until it does.
The ADL responded to calls for a ban by saying it is unsurprised yet undeterred that anti-semites, white supremacists, conspiracy theorists and other trolls have launched a coordinated attack on our organization. This type of thing is nothing new.
The group made no mention of Musk’s tweets in its response.
The feud between Musk and the ADL has raged since shortly after he bought Twitter for $44 billion last OctoberIt reached a crescendo in May when the mogul likened George Soros to X-Men supervillain Magneto following the controversial Democratic donor’s decision to dump his entire stake of Tesla stock.
Musk said Soros hates humanity, leading to the ADL to accuse Musk of dangerous speech.
MARTINSVILLE, Va. — With a Championship 4 spot on the line, William Byron put the bumper to Ryan Blaney to win at Martinsville Speedway on Sunday in the third-round finale of the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs.
Byron made his winning move with 43 laps remaining, seizing the bottom lane in Turn 1 and moving Blaney up the track by tagging him in the left rear.
The Hendrick Motorsports driver led the rest of the way and fended off Blaney on a restart with 11 laps remaining. Starting from the pole position, Byron led a race-high 304 of 500 laps for his third victory this season in the No. 24 Chevrolet.
“I thought William drove the race of his life,” said Hendrick vice chairman Jeff Gordon, a four-time Cup champion and nine-time winner at Martinsville himself.
It was the first win in 11 races since August at Iowa Speedway for Byron, who won the regular-season championship despite a six-month drought after opening the year with his second consecutive Daytona 500 victory.
He had one top-five finish (a third at New Hampshire Motor Speedway) in the previous eight playoff races and opened the third round with a 36th at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and a 25th at Talladega Superspeedway that left him in a win-or-else position to make his third consecutive Championship 4 appearance.
Byron delivered with his 16th career Cup victory — his first in a playoff elimination race and third at Martinsville.
“Damn, I got a lot to say,” Byron said. “Things have a way of working out. God really tests your resilience a lot of times. We’ve been tested. Just unbelievable. We just worked so hard, and you put everything into Sundays. Sometimes you don’t get anything in return. That’s been the last couple of weeks and honestly throughout the year. But sometimes life is that way. You just got to keep being resilient. We were. Just feels damn good.”
Blaney also was in a must-win situation to advance to the championship round. Trying to win his third consecutive playoff race at Martinsville, came up one spot short despite qualifying 31st and leading 177 laps on the 0.526-mile oval.
There were no hard feelings afterward as Blaney congratulated Byron in Victory Lane.
“That’s just two guys going for it, I don’t blame him for taking that,” Blaney said about the contact with Byron on the pass for the lead. “I would have done the same thing. I knew it was going to be tight. I tried to crowd him as much as I could. Just proud of the effort from the team. They gave 100% of what they had, and that’s all you can ask. Wasn’t quite enough.”
Kyle Larson, Byron’s Hendrick Motorsports teammate, captured the final championship-eligible berth in the season finale with a fourth-place finish that put him seven points ahead of Christopher Bell, who was seventh.
“What a performance by William,” Larson said. “Happy for Hendrick Motorsports. This win is as good as it could have been for us to score more points than Christopher then have William win, too. Hopefully one of us can win it.”
Bell again was the first driver left out of the Championship 4, but he could live with the outcome more than last year’s race when he was bounced by Byron in a finish tainted by manipulation.
“I feel content with the results,” Bell said. “The four are legitimate contenders. Whoever the champion is, it’s going to be well-deserving.”
Byron and Larson advanced to face Denny Hamlin and Chase Briscoe in the title round Nov. 2 at Phoenix Raceway, where the championship will be awarded to the driver with the best finish of the four drivers who are split evenly between Joe Gibbs Racing and Hendrick.
Along with Bell and Blaney, third-place finisher Chase Elliott and defending series champion Joey Logano (eighth) also were eliminated from the playoffs.
With Blaney and Logano locked out of the Phoenix title race, Team Penske’s streak of three consecutive Cup championships was snapped.
Hamlin and Briscoe both suffered engine failures during Sunday’s race.
Hamlin, who opened the third round with a Las Vegas Motor Speedway victory to advance to the title race, was running second on the 334th lap when he pulled his sputtering No. 11 Toyota into the garage.
It was the third playoff race with a mechanical problem for Hamlin, who also needed a push from team members Saturday when his car failed to start in qualifying.
“I felt like the car was coming to us and was just starting to close in on Blaney,” said Hamlin, who finished 35th after winning at Martinsville in March. “I didn’t feel anything. The engine was running and then not. We’ll work on it. I’m obviously concerned, but obviously nothing I can do about it. So we’re going to have to live with it and hopefully we get lucky next week.”
Briscoe finished last when his No. 19 Toyota lost power after 295 laps, but the JGR driver already had locked into the Championship 4 with his Oct. 19 victory at Talladega Superspeedway.
“Went to upshift and something happened,” said Briscoe, who was running 12th before the failure. “Not really sure but next week is what it’s all about anyway.”
Vanderbilt earned its highest ranking in The Associated Press college football poll in 88 years, while LSU dropped out of Top 25 following its third loss in four games.
The idle Buckeyes received 53 first-place votes and the Hoosiers got 11, six more than last week. Texas A&M was No. 1 on one ballot.
The top six were unchanged for the first time since Nov. 12, 2023, when the top eight stood pat. The last time Texas A&M received a first-place vote was Oct. 11, 2015.
No. 7 Ole Miss and No. 8 Georgia Tech swapped spots, as did No. 9 Vanderbilt and Miami, which is tied at No. 10 with BYU.
Including BYU, the Big 12 has five teams in the Top 25 for the first time this season, with No. 13 Texas Tech, No. 17 Cincinnati, No. 22 Houston and No. 24 Utah also ranked.
The Big 12 last had five Top 25 teams ranked on Sept. 22, 2024.
No. 24 Utah hammered Colorado53-7 with Byrd Ficklin starting in place of injured quarterback Devon Dampier and leading an offense that rushed for 422 of its 587 total yards.
Houston, which knocked off then-No. 24 Arizona State24-16 for its first road win against a ranked opponent since 2017, is in the Top 25 for the first time since the first two polls in 2022.
The Cougars (7-1) are off to their best start since 2021, two years before they joined the Big 12. None of Houston’s four remaining regular-season games are against ranked opponents.
Vanderbilt’s 17-10 win over then-No. 15 Missouri gave the Commodores a 7-1 start for the first time since 1941 and, at No. 9, its highest ranking since it was No. 7 for one week in 1937. Vandy has a program-record three regular-season wins over Top 25 opponents.
LSU was ranked as high as No. 3 for three weeks in September and in the top 10 for the first five polls. Road losses to Mississippi and Vanderbilt and this weekend’s 24-point home loss against Texas A&M put the Tigers on the outside looking in.
It’s the second straight year the Tigers have taken a fast fall. They were No. 8 a year ago and dropped out after three straight losses.
No. 12 Notre Dame appeared in its 900th poll, tied for fourth most all time, and No. 15 Virginia has its highest ranking since it was No. 10 on Nov. 7, 2004.
No. 23 USC, which was idle following its 34-24 loss at Notre Dame, faces a challenging game at Nebraska.
No. 9 Vanderbilt (7-1, 3-1 SEC) at No. 20 Texas (6-2, 3-1): The status of Texas QB Arch Manning is uncertain after he banged his head on the turf on the first play of overtime in the Longhorns’ win over Mississippi State.
No. 17 Cincinnati (7-1, 5-0 Big 12) at No. 24 Utah (6-2, 3-2): The Bearcats are on a seven-game win streak, while the Utes are in a must-win situation the rest of season to stay in the Big 12 race.
No. 18 Oklahoma (6-2, 2-2 SEC) at No. 14 Tennessee (6-2, 3-2): The Sooners’ best-in-the-SEC defense gave up a bevy of big plays to Mississippi and now face one of the most explosive offenses in the country.
Colorado coach Deion Sanders said he was “dumbfounded” when trying to evaluate the Buffaloes’ blowout loss Saturday night against Utah.
The 53-7 loss in Salt Lake City marked Colorado’s worst defeat since Sanders started coaching the Buffaloes in the 2023 season.
The 46-point margin also was the largest in the 72-game history of the “Rumble in the Rockies” rivalry between Colorado and Utah.
“This is bad. This is probably the worst beating I’ve ever had except when my momma whooped me as a kid,” Sanders said.
The Buffaloes (3-5, 1-4 Big 12) yielded 422 rushing yards to the Utes while finishing with just 140 yards of total offense, averaging 2.1 yards per play.
Utah (6-2, 3-2) led 43-0 at halftime, which was the largest halftime lead without allowing a point by a Big 12 team in a conference game since 2011.
“Sometimes you just are dumbfounded, man,” Sanders said. “You just look at this day and say, ‘Wow, what happened?’ There’s no way.”
When asked what went wrong Saturday night for the Buffaloes, Sanders said he was “trying to figure that out” and added that any evaluation of the team’s performance “starts with me.”
Sanders, who fell to 16-17 in his two-plus seasons at Colorado, also acknowledged that he was outcoached by Utah’s Kyle Whittingham.
“He kicked my butt today,” Sanders said. “It was one-on-one with me and him, and he won by a significant margin.”
Colorado needs to win three of its four remaining regular-season games to become bowl-eligible.
“We gotta figure this out, like now,” Sanders said.
