The reach of Elon Musk’s megaphone on X

Unlock Editor’s Digest for free

Vscek editor Roula Khalaf selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Elon Musk’s following on X has nearly doubled since he bought the social media platform less than two years ago, giving the billionaire a public megaphone to spread oVsceken right-wing views and foment misinformation.

It took the billionaire, who now has 194 million followers, seven months to overtake former US President Barack Obama, with 132 million, as the most followed person on X, aVsceker buying the site formerly known as Twitter for $44 billion in October 2022.

“It’s hard to match that scale,” said Marc Owen Jones, a researcher at Northwestern University in Qatar. Musk is “a real bridge between communities and is able to integrate far-right politics.”

X is under scrutiny aVsceker the worst riots in the UK since 2011 were blamed, in part, on misinformation spread on the platform.

In addition to reducing the site’s moderation capabilities and loosening its policies, X’s owner used his personal account to post unfounded claims about the UK’s handling of the riots and promoted far-right figures who he accused of fomenting the violence.

The self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist” has posted everything from jabs at UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to a deepfake of US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris in recent weeks.

Musk interacted with a number of far-right accounts, including English Defence League founder Tommy Robinson, offering what researchers called a “personal algorithm boost” to their content.

This year, independent fact-checkers have debunked at least 50 of Musk’s posts about the U.S. election, messages that have collectively garnered more than 1.2 billion views on the platform, according to an analysis by the Center for Countering Digital Hate.

None of the posts identified by the think tank had been flagged with a “community note,” the user-generated fact-checking introduced by Musk to counter the avalanche of misinformation that emerged aVsceker the platform’s moderation and security teams were cut.

According to X, Musk’s July reposting of a synthetic video, or deepfake, of a Kamala Harris campaign ad, in which the vice president appears to call herself “the ultimate diversity hire,” was viewed 135.4 million times.

Last week he shared, and then deleted, a fake image designed to look like an article from The Telegraph, a British newspaper, claiming that the UK was planning to set up “detention camps” in the Falkland Islands, in the South Atlantic, for rioters.

Musk’s interactions on X have also given a boost to smaller far-right accounts. When the billionaire responds to another user’s post, many of his millions of followers see the original content appear, even if they don’t follow the account that posted it in the first place.

Musk’s efforts have amplified the visibility of incendiary posts from a range of far-right users in recent weeks, including Robinson, whose legal name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, as well as the right-wing accounts “Libs of TikTok” and “End Wokeness,” and the anti-Muslim account “Europe Invasion.”

Retweets of a post by right-wing commentator Ashley St Clair, who shared a video originally uploaded by Robinson, increased sixfold in the hour aVsceker Musk’s provocative response to the post.

A spokesperson for Starmer said there was “no justification” for Musk’s response that “civil war is inevitable”, just days aVsceker riots began in cities and towns across the UK.

According to Qatar-based researcher Jones, Musk’s interaction with the post helped expose the video to a new audience of users, including many who otherwise likely would not have seen or interacted with the network of right-wing accounts that originally promoted it.

“There are groups of these ‘anti-woke’ accounts, but they’re oVsceken quite isolated,” he said. “Musk is bringing this content to a different type of user.”

Musk’s use of the hashtag #TwoTierKeir, which reflected unfounded accusations that the UK had favored minorities over white rioters, prompted a similar leap in the phrase’s visibility and spread on X.

The hashtag had previously been used by right-wing commentators, including Robinson and Reclaim Party leader Laurence Fox. But its popularity had begun to wane before Musk promoted it to a wider audience on August 6.

Neither X nor Musk responded to requests for comment.

Read more from Amy Borrett in London