Elon Musk told his 159 million followers to get Israel war updates from accounts that have peddled fake news

• Elon Musk recommended two accounts known for spreading misinformation to his X followers.
• The billionaire suggested the accounts for following the war in Israel in "real-time."

Elon Musk pointed X followers looking for updates on the Israel-Hamas conflict toward two accounts known for peddling misinformation.

In a post to X, formerly Twitter, the billionaire suggested @WarMonitors and @sentdefender "for following the war in real-time." Both accounts spread a false claim that there had been an explosion near the White House in May.

Musk deleted the post after three hours, but not before it was viewed by 11 million users and several news outlets. Musk appeared to take issue with a post by the War Monitor account that referred to Gaza fighters as "martyrs."

Replying to the post, Musk said: "Martyrs" is not an objective or accurate word, nor is "murdered". The former implies dying for a cause in battle and the latter implies a deliberate attempt to kill those specific people. While reporting both sides is fair, please use maximally accurate words or I must withdraw my recommendation to follow your account."

The War Monitor account has used the word "jew" in a derogatory way, The Washington Post reported, citing a June X post that has since been deleted.

Musk has spent the last few weeks fighting allegations of antisemitism after a fallout with the Anti-Defamation League over the spread of antisemitic content on X.

Experts have expressed concerns that the platform could be leveraged to spread misinformation about the Israel conflict. X has already faced allegations that it has the highest proportion of Russian disinformation of any major social network.

Representatives for X did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment, made outside normal working hours.