Elon Musk said that he believes diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies inherently involve discrimination and are "fundamentally anti-Semitic," amid the growing anti-Semitism in major Western cities and on college campuses.

In an interview with commentator Ben Shapiro on Jan. 22 at the European Jewish Association Conference in Poland, the owner of X (formerly Twitter) said people should "always be wary of any name that sounds like it could come out of a George Orwell book."

"Diversity, equity, inclusion, these all sound like nice words. But what it really means is discrimination on the basis of race, sex, and sexual orientation, and it's against merit," Mr. Musk said. "Thus, I think, [it] is fundamentally anti-Semitic."

During the interview, Mr. Musk noted that the solution to address this DEI problem is for universities to focus on merit. "It doesn't matter whether you're a man, [or] woman, what race you are, what beliefs you have. What matters is how good are you at your job or what are your skills?" he said.

"We just have to get rid of the rule that you that if you're weaker, you're automatically good. That obviously makes no sense," he added.

Earlier in the day, Mr. Musk toured the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Oswiecim, Poland, where at least 1.1 million people, mainly Jews, were killed by Nazi Germany during World War 2.

Mr. Musk said he was shocked to see pro-Hamas rallies across major Western cities and college campuses, including elite universities like Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania, where he attended.

"All of the riots that were in the major cities and college campuses, I think, was a shocking wake-up call to any sort of civilization or civil-minded person. [It's] really quite a shock," Mr. Musk said.