In the run up to the high-stakes 2024 presidential election, Elon Musk has posted a blizzard of false and misleading claims about the election on his social media platform that have generated more than two billion views this year, according to new research analysis from a nonprofit that tracks misinformation.
Musk, the billionaire X owner who endorsed former President Donald Trump in July, has emerged as a leading figure in US politics, in addition to his longstanding reputation as an enterprising science leader at Tesla and SpaceX. He has given more than $118 million to a pro-Trump super PAC and hit the campaign trail to stump for Trump in Pennsylvania.
On his social media platform, Musk has posted a seemingly endless stream of political messages, many in support of Trump and far-right political narratives, generating more than 17.1 billion views since the July endorsement, according to the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH). The enormous megaphone would cost a political campaign about $24 million to reach the same audience on the site, the group said.
CCDH’s research is based on an analysis of publicly available data from X about Musk’s own posts and spending by political campaigns to promote ads on the platform. The nonprofit tallied up how many views Musk received on 87 specific posts that contained false claims about the 2024 election that were debunked by fact-checkers. CNN has knocked down many of these bogus and distorted claims as well, including Musk’s baseless assertion that undocumented immigrants are voting en masse in US elections for Democrats.
