Experts: Musk is interfering in the US election campaign with misleading information

Tech billionaire Elon Musk is interfering in the US election campaign by spreading a variety of false information — and is attracting massive interest in these misleading posts on his online platform X, according to a study by online experts.

The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a non-governmental organization, said yesterday (local time) that Musk's false messages have been viewed nearly 1.2 billion times this year.

50X posts containing false information

Musk is a supporter of former right-wing populist US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. The billionaire has more than 193 million followers on X (formerly Twitter).

CCDH has identified 50 X messages from Musk about the election since January with claims that have been exposed as false or misleading by independent fact-checkers.

For example, Musk claimed that Democrats in the United States were deliberately promoting illegal immigration in order to win over immigrants as voters, or that the U.S. electoral system was vulnerable to fraud.

AI-edited video shared

More recently, Musk also drew criticism for distributing a video of Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris that was manipulated using artificial intelligence.

The video, which was viewed by millions of users, contained no indication that it was a parody, other than a laughing emoji. Musk only later clarified that it was “satire.”

CCDH also criticized the fact that none of Musk’s false election messages included a community note field. According to X, the tool is intended to provide the ability to “add context to posts that may be misleading.”