New York.- As the owner of X and its most followed user, Elon Musk has increasingly used the social media platform as a microphone to amplify his political views and, lately, those of right-wing figures he aligns himself with.
There are few modern parallels to his doings, but it is also a fact that there are few modern parallels to Elon Musk himself.
Of course: none of this should come as a surprise.
In 2022, when he was trying to buy Twitter, Musk said he was doing so because it was not living up to its potential as a “platform for free speech.”
Protecting free speech — not money — was his motivation because, as he said, “having a public platform that is trusted to the maximum and is broadly inclusive is extremely important to the future of civilization.”
Musk often broods about the future of civilization. On the one hand, he seems obsessed with an impending “population collapse” that threatens to wipe out humanity. And last year, he joined prominent scientists and technology leaders in warning the world that artificial intelligence is a danger.
The billionaire has framed threats to free speech as another existential crisis looming over the world. And he says he will do everything he can to save it.
“Freedom of speech is the cornerstone of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where issues vital to the future of humanity are debated,” Musk said in an April 2022 post, adding heart, star and rocket emojis to highlight the statement.
Two years later, the platform — now called X — has become a de facto haven for the kind of free speech Musk has come to champion. In the U.S., he has spread memes — and sometimes misinformation — about illegal immigration, alleged voter fraud and transgender politics, and he formally endorsed former President Donald Trump’s presidential bid this summer.
In May 2023, he co-hosted the official announcement of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ presidential bid. That turned out to be a disastrous launch marred by technical glitches, but it underscored Musk’s desire to turn X into a “digital town square.”
After the event was marred by technical difficulties, Musk extended an open invitation to any other presidential candidate who wanted to make a pitch. Trump took him up on it, agreeing to an interview with the billionaire Tesla CEO on Monday night. The conversation began with more technical glitches, with people unable to join in and starting about 42 minutes late.
“I haven’t been very political before,” Musk said during his conversation with Trump.
Overseas, where most X users live, he has clashed with senior officials in Australia, Brazil, the European Union and the United Kingdom over the balance between free speech and the spread of misinformation and disinformation. And he accused a political party in his native South Africa of “openly pushing for white genocide.”
“Elon Musk is a master of media and controls one of the biggest microphones in the world. Musk understands the power of social media to shape a political narrative,” said Jasmine Enberg, an analyst at Emarketer, a marketing, commerce and digital media trends analytics firm. “The concern is that as he pushes his own political agenda, X could suppress viewpoints that oppose Musk’s, either intentionally or because the platform has become more partisan. That could turn off users who feel marginalized on the platform and disillusion some who may have previously bought into his mantra about free speech.”
Musk’s political shift comes at a time when other social media platforms, notably Facebook and Meta’s Instagram, are moving away from politics. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has never endorsed a presidential candidate, and in February, the world’s largest social media company announced it would avoid recommending political content to people who don’t already follow those accounts.
Lately, Zuckerberg seems to contrast with Musk in other ways, too. While just in January the Facebook founder testified before Congress about the harm his platform has caused to children, he seems to have adopted a more modern style that includes gold chains, longer curls and a radiant confidence along with a slightly self-deprecating humor that embraces his eccentricities. On July 4, for example, he posted a video of himself on an electric surfboard, dressed in a tuxedo and holding a beer can in one hand and an American flag in the other. The online response was far more positive than a 2021 surfing photo, where he is seen slathered in so much sunscreen that it appears he is wearing a white mask.
Musk, meanwhile, has moved from “nerd cool” territory into what tech journalist Kara Swisher recently called “the Howard Hughes phase” of inevitable decline. He spars with those who disagree with him, whether they are foreign governments or people he describes as infected by what he calls the “woke mind virus,” a derogatory term used by conservatives to refer to people with a liberal ideology.
Last week, the British government called on Elon Musk to act more responsibly after the tech billionaire used X to launch a series of posts that risked inflaming the violent unrest gripping the country.
Justice Minister Heidi Alexander made the comments after Musk posted a comment saying that “civil war is inevitable” in the U.K. Musk then doubled down, highlighting complaints that Britain’s criminal justice system treats Muslims more leniently than far-right activists and comparing the U.K.’s crackdown on social media users to the Soviet Union.
X officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Of course, some of Musk’s current battles over free speech are similar to those waged by Twitter’s previous administration under repressive regimes that have, at times, restricted or blocked access to the platform to stifle dissent.
In Venezuela, for example, President Nicolas Maduro last week ordered a 10-day block on access to X in the country, the latest in a series of efforts by his government to try to suppress the exchange of information between people expressing doubts about his declaration of victory in the July 28 presidential election. Maduro accused X of being used by his opponents to create political unrest and gave the company 10 days to “present its documents,” without elaborating.
Musk’s unconventional behavior is unlike any other leader of Big Tech, and while it may make a segment of X’s user base uncomfortable, it may also draw attention to his platform. Could this all be part of a larger plan? After all, despite publicly criticizing Musk’s antics, those on the left still use his platform.
“X has remained surprisingly resilient throughout the recent controversy,” Enberg said. “That’s largely due to consumers’ fascination with conspiracy theories and (with) Elon Musk himself.”
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