Misinformation, propaganda, xenophobia — Elon Musk put it all on display during one turbulent weekend on Twitter.
|
Listen To This Story
 |
Some billionaires spend their money on buying sports teams or Supreme Court justices. Others like to run casinos into the ground, and a few use some of their riches for philanthropic endeavors. And Elon Musk, the on-again/off-again richest man on the planet? Well, he spent the weekend being a disingenuous demagogue, a hypocrite, a crybaby, and a xenophobe on the platform he bought for $44 billion. Oh, and he apparently also violated his own website’s terms of service in the process.
First, let’s look at the biggest controversy.
A few days ago, the conservative commentator Christopher Kohls posted a fake campaign ad from Vice President Kamala Harris on Twitter* and clearly labeled it a “parody” (although the use of an AI-generated version of Harris’s voice blurs the line between parody and advocacy).
Musk then shared that video with his 191 million followers without bothering to point out that the ad was fake. Instead, he simply commented, “This is amazing,” and a laughing emoji.
While the original post did not run afoul of Twitter’s rules, the repost did.
“You may not share synthetic, manipulated, or out-of-context media that may deceive or confuse people and lead to harm (‘misleading media’),” Twitter’s rules state.
Seeing how Musk’s post has not been taken down or labeled appropriately, those rules seemingly don’t apply to the boss, which fuels concerns that the right-wing billionaire is using the platform for his own political purposes.
But that wasn’t all for Musk, who once hilariously fooled The New York Times into believing that he was anything other than an ultraconservative tech bro.
His true political inclinations were on full display all weekend.
He shared the latest grievance of Republicans who believe that Google instituted a search ban on “President Donald Trump” (a problem we could not duplicate on multiple devices in different countries) and suggested this may be “election interference.”
“They’re getting themselves into a lot of trouble if they interfere with the election,” he tweeted later, which is a bit rich coming from someone who just shared a fake election ad without labeling it as such.
And no good Musk rant session would be complete without the spreading of propaganda and misleading/false information with some xenophobia sprinkled in (the South African-born entrepreneur is an adherent to the “great replacement” theory).
In this case, he amplified a video allegedly showing election interference in Venezuela. However, it did not display the actual election interference that undoubtedly took place, but rather the theft of some air conditioners.
In other words, he did more harm than good.
Speaking of that “election” in the South American country, Musk also responded to MAGA propagandist “Gunther Eagleman,” who suggested that, unless Donald Trump is elected, “the United States will become Venezuela.”
Musk opined that “the risk of this is very real.”
As for the actual danger to US democracy, the billionaire also amplified a post suggesting that Donald Trump’s words were somehow taken out of context when the former president told Christians that this is the last year in which they would have to vote because everything would be “fixed” in four years.
As proof of this, he posted two videos of Trump’s speech, one of which was two seconds longer than the version shared by The Wall Street Journal.
So, what did these extra two seconds show? Did Trump say “Just kidding,” or make some other clarifying remark? Nope, he basically just said the same thing again.
And that barely scratches the surface of Musk’s dissemination of misinformation and propaganda in just one weekend.
The only good thing about all of this is that he is finally showing his true colors in a way that won’t even confuse the Times anymore.
*Editor’s Note: While Elon Musk has changed the name of the platform from “Twitter” to “X,” we are not interested in catering to the whims of every billionaire man-child. That is why we will keep using Twitter and trust that our astute readers will be able to figure out what we are talking about. For more on this, please read “Elon Musk Has an Xtremely Stupid Idea.”
