X owner Elon Musk has been involved in the ongoing US Presidential Election campaign quite vocally and a lot of rumours and fake news about the tech titan have also been making rounds on social media platforms. Imran Ahmed, head of the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), told Deutsche Welle (DW) that since Musk took over X, the platform has 'devolved into a hellscape of hate and discrimination'. He alleged that much of the hate and discrimination comes from Musk himself.
A recent report by the CCDH revealed that between January and July 2024, Elon Musk's false or misleading statements about the US election garnered 1.2 billion views on X.
Musk has often been accused of retweeting or engaging with false and misleading claims and conspiracy theories which ultimately ends up giving them an immense reach. Let us go over three examples of when Musk was found to be spreading false claims.
How Elon Musk Is Spreading False Claims Ahead Of US Presidential Elections
- Illegal Migrants Brought In To Be Made Voters: Back in July, US Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson alleged that Democrats want to turn illegal migrants into voters. Elon Musk retweeted this while adding that the goal all along has been to import as many illegal voters as possible. The post garnered around 45 million views. If we shed the light of reality on this then only US citizens are allowed to vote in the US Presidential Elections. A statement on USA.gov, reads, "Noncitizens, including permanent legal residents, cannot vote in federal, state and most local elections."
- Using AI To Turn People Against Kamala Harris: Back in September, Elon Musk shared an image portraying US Vice President Kamala Harris donning a red Communist outfit with a hammer and sickle on her hat. While sharing the image, he wrote, "Kamala vows to be a communist dictator on day one. Can you believe she wears that outfit!?" This post garnered over 80 million views. Users busted Musk's lie and concluded that it was generated by AI. As per comments, users were able to determine this by the sharpness of Harris' image against a blurred background and the involvement of unusual bright colours.
- More Voters Than Residents: Elon Musk amplified the rumours of something being wrong with the voter rolls in Michigan. The claim was that there are more voters than residents eligible to vote. Michigan's Election Fact Center debunked this. Musk then further accused the Michigan Secretary of State, Jocelyn Benson, of dishonesty. Musk wrote to him, "You only plan to remove the ineligible voters AFTER the election. That necessarily means that there are far more people registered to vote than there are eligible voters." In the US, state and federal laws mandate that voters can only be removed from voter rolls after receiving a notice about the potential cancellation of their registration and then not responding or participating in any voting activity for the following two federal election cycles.