The Washington Post

Long before Elon Musk, Henry Ford went to war with Jewish groups

Story by Shera Avi-Yonah

Ford, however, both promoted and believed antisemitic conspiracy theories, according to historians. He purchased the Independent in 1918, seeking to counter “a hostile press controlled by banks and other powerful financial interests,” institutions he associated with Jewish people, the Henry Ford Museum wrote.

The paper became infamous when, in 1920, it began publishing a series called “The International Jew: The World’s Problem,” spreading the content of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an antisemitic forgery first published in Russia, to an American subscriber base that would reach 900,000.