Elon Musk and politics: is X owner playing dangerous game?

When Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022, he had "lofty aims", said Finn McRedmond in The New Statesman. The billionaire wanted to cultivate a "common digital square"; a platform that "could accommodate wide-ranging beliefs and facilitate debate without violence". 

But "fast forward to England in 2024, and this ideal has totally collapsed", said McRedmond. "High streets are ablaze, and while X is not to blame, it is far from innocent." The platform is "awash with violent rhetoric" that has spilled out from the digital square onto the streets.

'His own personal political bullhorn'

"This was a test for the new Labour administration, and not one it has passed," McRedmond continued. Musk, a man "whose cosmic ambition is matched only by his base puerility", tweeted on Sunday that "civil war is inevitable" in Britain. A Labour spokesperson responded, saying there was "no justification" for Musk's intervention. 

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But "like all agitators, Musk was buoyed by the attention". Giving the X owner "any oxygen at all was a mistake: it debased the public conversation and fanned Musk's rhetorical flames". As the unrest subsides, Labour may begin to question, "what can be done about these social media platforms? Should anything be done?"

Musk's behaviour on X mirrors his actions in the US online space, where he has "used the platform as his own personal political bullhorn", said Vittoria Elliott in Wired. In July, Musk posted a deepfake video of presidential candidate Kamala Harris, in which she appears to say that she is the "ultimate DEI [diversity, equality, inclusion] hire" and a "deep-state puppet". 

After endorsing Donald Trump last month, Musk also "boosted baseless conspiracies of a 'coup'" following Biden's withdrawal from the presidential race and insinuated that the Trump assassination attempt "might have been the result of an intentional failure on the part of the Secret Service".

Former Twitter trust and safety employees have said that Musk's "increasingly partisan behaviour around the US elections" and other major events show he is "doing exactly what he accused the company's former leadership of doing: playing politics". 

One former employee labelled Musk's actions as "staggering hypocrisy", adding: "Musk is smart enough to know social media is media, and it's a way to control the narrative." Other former employees expressed concern that Musk represents a "new kind" of political actor, "someone who seeks to actively use a platform to reshape politics in both the US and abroad, and is willing to endure regulatory fines and declining advertising revenue to do so".

Musk the 'greatest challenge' to reining in extremist content 

Musk's "latest flurry of innuendo, half-truths, and lies online is making it increasingly clear that it is the tech mogul – and not just his platform – who poses the greatest challenge to governments struggling to rein in content that can incite extremist violence", said Politico. 

In response, "angry officials are trying to find levers to pull to influence the world's richest man". British MPs have expressed their intent to "haul Musk in" for questioning over his posts amid UK rioting while, in the US, investigations are under way into potential misuse of personal data by a super political action committee created by Musk.

But other countries have already "tried and failed" to hold Musk accountable. When X refused to censor posts of a stabbing attack in Australia, it led to a federal court case that the platform ultimately won. Similarly, in Brazil, a Supreme Court justice ordered an investigation into Musk over his alleged dissemination of fake news.

"Elon is weaponising this in a way it hasn't been weaponised before," said Democratic strategist Adam Parkhomenko, speaking to Politico, referring to Musk's posts and his hands-off approach to content moderation on X. 

But there are fewer ways to restrict Musk's reach since his takeover of the company, taking it private, the strategist noted. "There's not as many options on the table as there might be, if this was something else, like a publicly traded company."