On July 13, lower than an hour after the assassination attempt on US presidential candidate Donald Trump, Elon Musk posted the next on X (formerly Twitter) to his over 190 million followers:
Just a few days later, Musk was reported planned inspection $45 million a month to a pro-Trump super political motion committee (PAC). Musk denied this, saying he had formed a brand new “America PAC” focused on “meritocracy and individual freedom.”
Trump is anticipated to learn from donations from Musk, who has said “The Republicans are predominantly, but not exclusively, on the side of achievement and freedom.”
Musk has previously described himself as a “champion of absolute freedom of speech” and as a political moderate. His political beliefs often don’t fit into the left-right binary. In the context of the US presidential election, nonetheless, he supported the Democratic candidate in every election between 2008 and 2020.
Now he's seen as a possible concession to conservatives – especially after his support for Trump. So what's modified?
The death of Twitter – and the birth of X
Since Musk Twitter in October 2022 and renamed X, the platform was criticized for Hate speech And Bots to spread. Investigations suggest that each allegations are true.
According to a 2023 report by the Centre for Countering Digital Hate, Musk’s property corresponded to a rise of 119 % in tweets a few conspiracy claiming LGBTQ+ people abuse children. The report sparked Musk’s anger and legal setback.
This week, Musk is within the news for using transphobic rhetoric in reference to his own daughter Vivian Wilson, whom he described as “dead – killed by the woke mind virus.” This isn’t the primary time that Musk involved in anti-trans rhetoric.
Last yr, a colleague and I ran our own Analysis of X-Posts which revealed a robust presence of predominantly right-wing bot accounts.
During the primary Republican primary debate (and the concurrently streamed interview between Trump and right-wing media personality Tucker Carlson) in August, we discovered a coordinated network of greater than 1,200 accounts spreading the conspiracy theory that Trump was the legitimate winner of the 2020 U.S. presidential election. This content received greater than three million views.
We also found an intensive network of 1,305 unique bot accounts (lots of which were pro-Trump).
In addition, Musk's rule over X asked Hundreds of 1000’s of users (including journalists and scientists) to delete or abandon their accountsBut while left-leaning public figures lost supporters, reinstated right-leaning figures akin to Marjorie Taylor Greene, Jordan Peterson, Andrew Tate and Trump himself quickly she won.
Last yr, NPR News was mistakenly reported as as “state-affiliated media” – a term that until then had been reserved for propaganda media of autocratic regimes. X later revised the term and called it “state-funded media”, although NPR explains lower than 1% of its budget comes from the federal government.
What does this mean for Trump supporters?
X was once touted as to be a “global town square” where journalists, politicians and interested residents could gather for public debate. But given the variety of journalists, academics and left-leaning users who’ve left the square, it seems unlikely that it’ll ever return to that status.
Given the dearth of diverse perspectives and solid moderation practices, it is not any surprise that the discussion has turn into a spot where Trump supporters mobilize.
Just this week, Musk apparently violated his platform's guidelines by sharing a deepfake video of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris, without mentioning that it was satirical. The video, which accommodates vote-tampering footage, purports to indicate Harris making negative comments about President Joe Biden, the Democrats, and her own qualifications to be president.
Musk also called Harris an “extinctionist” in reference to a video wherein she addresses young people’s climate fears.
Offline, Musk was reportedly involved in meetings with a gaggle of conservative billionaires with the aim of ensuring that Trump wins the election.
We can only speculate whether he has modified his political beliefs and not consistently votes for the Democrats. Before taking on Twitter, Musk claimed that his problems with the platform stemmed from the “far left“Management censorship of content.”
Reporters have also noted that Musk's actions often appear to be motivated by personal grievances and business motives. For example, after the Biden administration didn’t invite Tesla At an event for electric vehicle manufacturers on the White House, Musk criticized the US President on Twitter.
As the richest man on this planet – with key positions in firms akin to Space X, Tesla, Neuralink and The Boring Company – Musk’s business performance long been the topic of Policies and regulatory measures from either side of presidency.
What's next?
Musk isn't the primary billionaire to air his personal political displeasure online. Nor is he the primary to spend money on the policies of a candidate who most closely fits him. But he's arguably the primary to achieve this while controlling a social media mouthpiece like X.
Back to the upcoming US presidential election: What is especially worrying is that Musk appears to permit each inflammatory speech and bots on his platform – especially given the Russian interference within the 2016 elections. And our own research from last yr shows that X's bot problem is much from being solved.
In the run-up to the November election, it’ll be necessary for researchers to trace the automated activity and accounts on X. Unfortunately, they’ll not find a way to achieve this as they’ve prior to now. Much of the invaluable research that was once conducted by free access to Twitter's API stopped when Musk made this access prohibitive expensive.
image credit : theconversation.com