Elon Musk Is Now X's Biggest Promoter of Anti-Immigrant Conspiracies

"The billionaire owner is spreading debunked theories of undocumented voters swaying the US election, and growing his influence in the process.

In early October, at the Butler fairgrounds in western Pennsylvania, thousands of Donald Trump supporters gathered for a campaign rally, hoping to see another star: billionaire Elon Musk. When Musk leapt onstage, he lifted his hands high to greet the audience, smiling. But a few minutes into his speech, his tone turned ominous.

The “other side,” Musk warned, wants to “take away your right to vote effectively.” He predicted that the 2024 US presidential race could be the last free election. It was a reference to the conspiracy theory he’s been pushing on social media: that broad election fraud will occur in November by undocumented immigrants illegally casting votes for the Democrats.

Immigration and voter fraud has become, by far, the entrepreneur’s favorite and most popular policy topic online, according to a large-scale Bloomberg analysis of his posts on X, the social network he owns, where he has more than 200 million followers. In 2024, Musk’s frequent posts on immigration — including claims about the crimes attributed to migrants, the pace of their entry into the US, and the false assertion that Democrats are using them to cast votes — have received more reposts than any other policy issue he writes about.

Bloomberg analyzed more than 53,000 posts sent from Musk’s account on X, formerly known as Twitter, between December 2011 and October 2024 to determine which topics he remarked on most, and tracked which of his posts received the most engagement. The analysis also revealed patterns in how Musk links immigrants to voter fraud, and reaches a wider audience. The majority of the time, he’s reacting to others’ content with a simple emoji reaction or comment, adding his endorsement without directly repeating it. And his posts generally do not receive notes from X’s fact-checking system, even if demonstrably false."

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2024-musk-x-election-influence-immigration/?srnd=homepage-americas