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ADL, one of the well-known Jewish advocacy and anti-hate groups in the United States, has turned into the target of a conservative crusade that escalated on Wednesday when top FBI official Kash Patel criticized the non-profit and declared the bureau would end its partnership with the group.

The director's statement followed days of attacks by rightwing influencers and the X owner targeting the ADL over its online database on extremism, which featured a page on slain far-right pundit the activist's TPUSA and the group's links to far-right extremists. Earlier this week, the ADL removed its entire Glossary of Extremism, a key initiative that contained over 1,000 listings on groups and movements with connections to hateful ideologies. The move failed to quell the criticism.

The fury directed at the Anti-Defamation League this week has placed the century-old organization in a challenging situation. It has faced a long period of staff disputes as well as accusations it has tried to placate the Trump administration and the billionaire at the cost of its core values. Currently it finds itself under fire by some of the very conservative powers it previously supported.

What Sparked the Criticism Against ADL Begin?

Recently, a number of influential conservative social media profiles started sharing screenshots of the organization's page on Turning Point USA, attacking the organization for including Kirk’s group in its Glossary of Extremism. One of the first posts, from a self-described “online provocateur”, claimed the Anti-Defamation League of having “responsibility for violence”.

The ADL did not actually list Turning Point USA as an extremist organization, but instead documented events where its officials and associated members had both aligned with extremists or made “racist or bigoted comments”. Additional conservative voices joined in by posting about the ADL. Several shared a image of the league's page on the Christian Identity movement – an extremist ideology that promotes a religious conflict against Jews and marginalized groups – to allege that the ADL was biased against Christian believers as a whole.

The online campaign against the Anti-Defamation League escalated further over the weekend after Elon Musk, who controls X and boasts over 220 m users on the platform, started replying to posts about the non-profit and joining in on the attacks.

“The ADL hates Christian people, therefore it should be considered a hate group,” the billionaire replied recently to an X account that often tweets anti-immigrant material. Elsewhere, he suggested that the ADL’s operations promoted violence.

Following a period of rightwing outrage – that included a Republican congresswoman – accusing the Anti-Defamation League of “creating a targeted hate campaign against Christians”, the organization stated on Tuesday that it had eliminated its complete glossary of extremism from its site – a tool it touted in 2022 as “the most comprehensive and intuitive guide on hateful rhetoric currently available to the general audience”. The organization framed the decision to remove as a way to “investigate new strategies and creative approaches to present our data and present our research more effectively”.

This group has weathered similar pressure campaigns from rightwing activists in the previous years, such as from Chaya Raichik of the influential social media account in 2023, although these campaigns did not lead to major removals.

Inability to Halt the Criticism

In spite of the league's apparent surrender to the billionaire and other critics, the rightwing campaign against the organization continued. Within 24-hours after, Kash Patel, posted on the platform that his agency would end its collaboration with the ADL, accused the non-profit of spying on rightwing organizations, and denounced former FBI director James Comey’s praise of the group. The organization had historically worked with law enforcement to hold workshops on anti-Jewish bias, provide historical lessons and share data on hate organizations.

“James Comey wrote ‘love letters’ to the ADL and placed FBI agents with them – a group that operated disgraceful ops spying on Americans,” the director stated on the platform. “That period is OVER. Our bureau won’t work with political fronts masquerading as watchdogs”.

The organization did not get any official messages from the Trump administration about its relationship with the FBI and is working to learn more, the organization said in a press release on Thursday.

“ADL has strong appreciation for the FBI and police personnel at all levels nationwide who work tirelessly constantly to safeguard every citizen regardless of their ancestry, religion, ethnicity, faith, political affiliation or any other point of difference,” the press release states.

The campaign targeting the Anti-Defamation League has occurred against the backdrop of a rightwing push that has sought to punish individuals and organizations that have been critical of the activist. Rightwing voices have claimed to have targeted many thousands of people who have allegedly spoken against the pundit or applauded the activist’s death, with one group proclaiming: “We aim to change the membership of US organizations.”

Following the Anti-Defamation League deleted its glossary of extremism, the billionaire and other right wing influencers started moving their attention to the Southern Poverty Law Center – another well-known human rights and anti-extremism organization. Musk called for the SPLC, which additionally recorded Kirk’s group’s connections to far-right extremism, an “harmful group” that “needs to be closed”.

Didn’t the Anti-Defamation League Defend the Billionaire?

The entrepreneur's assault on the ADL this week is part of a longstanding, fraught dynamic between the wealthy executive and the non-profit. The ADL has sometimes condemned Musk and his companies for incidents such as his Grok chatbot endorsing extremist views and calling itself “MechaHitler”; however, it also defended him when he faced allegations of anti-Jewish sentiment.

Jonathan Greenblatt, the organization's leader, commended the billionaire in 2023 for saying he would block use of the pro-Palestinian slogan “a disputed expression” on X. Only days before, however, he had supported an antisemitic conspiracy theory on the site that alleged Jewish communities pushed animosity against Caucasians. The CEO's praise caused an uproar inside the group, and a its top executives stepped down following the event.

The organization defended Musk another time earlier this year, after elected officials and advocacy organizations criticized what they called his fascist-style salutes on stage after a speech following Trump’s re-election. The ADL wrote: “It seems that the billionaire performed an awkward gesture in a excited instant, not a Nazi salute.”

Carrying water for Musk yet again led to additional unrest within the group, with news outlets