
How Elon Musk has turned X into a pro-Trump machine
CNN
Nearly two years after Elon Musk bought Twitter and turned it into X, the billionaire is leveraging its power as a source of real-time news for millions of users to try to sway the outcome of the 2024 presidential election in favor of former President Donald Trump.
Nearly two years after Elon Musk bought Twitter and turned it into X, the billionaire is leveraging its power as a source of real-time news for millions of users to try to sway the outcome of the 2024 presidential election in favor of former President Donald Trump. Musk has already asserted his voice in the political sphere for months. He’s pushed racist conspiracy theories about the Biden administration’s immigration policies, obsessed over the “woke mind virus,” a term used by some conservatives to describe progressive causes, and warned of the country’s impending “doom” if a “red wave” does not materialize in November. But now Musk, who is not only the owner but also the most followed user on X, has shifted to more direct campaigning for former President Donald Trump. It’s an unusual move for one of the world’s richest men and the leader of a mainstream social network. Social media platforms have played a role in past elections: campaigns have used them to build support, foreign actors have used them in efforts to interfere in election outcomes and the industry was criticized in 2020 for restricting access to reports of Hunter Biden’s laptop. And some tech leaders have spoken out about their preferred candidate for the White House. But the major platforms themselves, and especially their owners, typically do not try to affect how users will vote, save for ensuring people have basic, accurate information about voting and removing influence operations that seek to covertly manipulate people. Musk, by contrast, has turned the platform he purchased for $44 billion into his own personal, political messaging machine, seeking to influence his more than 190 million followers and, in some cases, sharing false claims from the very top. Musk announced his official endorsement for Trump in a post last month that received 2.3 million likes. And on Monday, he hosted Trump for a friendly, 2-plus-hour livestreamed conversation on X, in which he allowed the former president to make at least 20 false claims about everything from crime and immigration to tax cuts, without pushback.