Comment: Musk's two tracks to put Trump in White House

By Dave Lee / Bloomberg Opinion

Elon Musk’s America PAC — which he has funded with $75 million from his own pocket — launched last week what it’s calling the Election Integrity Community on X, formerly Twitter. The group purports to be “dedicated to sharing potential instances of voter fraud and irregularities” as voters head to the polls.

You can probably already guess how it’s going. Within 24 hours, conspiracy theories have filled the stream. Some are a lazy rehashing of 2020’s thoroughly debunked “scandals,” such as voting machines “switching” votes from Republican to Democrat. Others are newer twists featuring familiar characters, like Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger who was on the receiving end of Trump’s “Fellas, I just need 11,000 votes” call the last time around. As I write this, the top post in the Election Integrity Community accuses Raffensperger of working to set up a shadowy fund to “force” the election result (he isn’t).

Before Musk took over, this was the kind of toxic and dangerous misinformation Twitter used to try to curtail. The company’s trust and safety team knew it takes just minutes for a rumor to take hold and seed distrust or provoke real-world violence.

Today, Musk and, more recently, his America PAC encourage and amplify this kind of content. The Election Integrity Community is a backup plan in case Musk’s personal efforts to get out the Trump vote in swing states fall short. Like the former president, who has yet to acknowledge he lost in 2020, Musk is laying the groundwork for “Stop the Steal 2024.”

https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/comment-musks-two-tracks-to-put-trump-in-white-house/