Happy Wednesday! Is it hot? Send your news tips to will.oremus@washpost.com.
What Musk’s support for Trump means for X and the election.
Four years ago, then-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Google CEO Sundar Pichai were summoned to a series of congressional hearings to testify about their platforms’ handling of the 2020 presidential election. Republican leaders, including Sens. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) and Ted Cruz (Texas), pressed the social media chiefs on allegations of anti-conservative bias, all three of whom vociferously denied the allegations.
With the next presidential election looming, Dorsey is long gone, Twitter is now X, and its new owner no longer makes any pretenses to personal impartiality. Elon Musk said over the weekend:[s] He supports President Trump and is reportedly preparing to donate a large amount to a pro-Trump super PAC.
Musk’s emergence as a prominent Trump supporter raises new questions about what role X might play in the 2024 election.
Musk’s attempt to take over Twitter was motivated from the start by his opposition to the company’s content moderation policies, but his stance on X reflects his right-wing leanings, which may mean his public support for Trump doesn’t actually change much.
Speculation about Big Tech’s past bias aside, this presidential election marks the first time that major social media platforms have been controlled by close public allies of a candidate — and that candidate, Trump, ended up being barred after violating the rules of the mainstream social media platforms too frequently.
Meta, YouTube and X have all since reinstated Trump. Meta announced on Friday that it would no longer closely monitor Trump’s account, giving Trump a clean slate ahead of this week’s Republican National Convention.
As recently as two years ago, it was unclear whether Trump would again be able to use mainstream social media to further his candidacy. The question now is whether he will again be sanctioned for his posts.
While X has rolled back some content policies under Musk, the company’s civil rights policy still bans some forms of voting misinformation, but Musk has a track record of changing the company’s rules on the fly, either to address complaints from conservatives or to protect his own interests.
Musk’s public support for Trump has raised concerns that he might bend or change the site’s rules to boost candidates he supports. X did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday about whether it would continue its fairness efforts.
Musk could also give Trump a boost without bending the rules by simply amplifying the voices of his supporters using his highly influential X accounts, some of whom he began following shortly after Trump announced his endorsement.
Days after Trump was shot at a rally, Musk promoted X as the primary news source on the incident, urging users to ditch mainstream media and turn to his site, which had been a hotbed of unfounded claims in the aftermath of the shooting. Musk himself helped spark a hot-button debate about whether the Secret Service had let Trump down by prioritizing diversity among its personnel.
On Monday, he posted that “traditional media is a pure propaganda organ,” but X is “the voice of the people.”
The remarks are in keeping with Trump’s long-standing description of the media as “fake news,” a term he has frequently used during his presidency to deflect or deflect attention from negative coverage.
“Conspiracy theories animate MAGA’s rejection of elites,” said Tom Josselyn, a senior fellow at the online forum Just Security and one of the lead authors of the Jan. 6, 2021, report from the Democratic-led House Select Committee on American Affairs. “So it’s not surprising that Musk frequently shares and supports conspiracy theories that seek to undermine public faith in American institutions and democracy.”
“For example, Musk continues to repeat the already-debunked claim that foreign nationals voted in large numbers in Arizona,” Joslin added, a baseless theory Trump has frequently promoted since his 2020 defeat. “We should expect to see more of these false claims from X and Musk himself as we get closer to the election.”
But even as mainstream social media appears to be swaying in Trump’s favor, one key figure has been largely absent: Trump himself.
After being banned from the major platforms, Trump launched his own social network, Truth Social. Since then, he has used the site, along with Twitter, as his primary online megaphone. The site and its parent company, Trump Media, have had legal and financial troubles, and at one point Trump even asked Musk if he wanted to buy the site. But a recent influx of money from investors has boosted the site’s assets.
X reinstated Trump’s account in November 2022, but Trump has only posted once since then. A person close to Trump told my colleague Drew Harwell that if Trump were to return to full activity on X, it could jeopardize Truth Social, which is the centerpiece of his account. For now, Trump appears to be prioritizing his own business over the possibility of reaching a wider audience on X. In the meantime, his network of allies on X is making sure his message continues to be heard there.
Whether or not Trump returns to X full-time, Musk’s embrace of Trump’s candidacy shines new light on the issue of political bias at Big Tech companies.
Stanford Law School professor Evelyn Dooke joked that we may soon see Democratic states try to regulate social media bias, as Texas and Florida have done.
“The enormous power these private companies (and the handful of billionaires who run them) have over the public sphere is a real policy issue, regardless of your political stance,” she said.
Government Scanner
Trump Allies Draft AI Order to Launch “Manhattan Project” for Defense (Cat Zakrzewski)
App that promised to “use AI to weed out dates with STDs” has been shut down (The Verge)
FCC Chairman Proposes Rules to Mandate AI Disclosure for Robocalls (The Hill)
Inside the Industry
Musk claims he will move SpaceX from California to Texas (Trisha Thadani)
DEI and why female Secret Service agents have become targets of right-wing rage (Taylor Lorenz, Naomi Nix, Nitasha Tick)
Is it Silicon Valley’s job to deliver a guaranteed income? (New York Times)
Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz say they plan to donate to Trump PAC (The Information)
Apple, Nvidia and Anthropic trained their AI by swiping through thousands of YouTube videos (Proof News)
Competition Watches
Amazon’s AI executive hiring comes under FTC investigation (Bloomberg News)
Microsoft’s AI hiring faces competition law investigation (Bloomberg News)
Privacy Monitor
Senators demand explanation from AT&T over massive hack of US customer call data (Reuters)
Workforce Report
Amazon’s Prime Day is a “leading cause of injuries” for workers, Senate investigation finds (Wall Street Journal)
trend
Is it bad if my electronics get hot? (Shira Ovide)
Mentioned
Expedia and Intuit have joined technology trade group Internet Works, bringing the total number of member companies to 20.
diary
The Federal Communications Commission will hold a public meeting at 10:30 a.m. Thursday.
Before you log off
That’s all for today. Thank you for joining us. Please tell others to subscribe to Tech Brief. Contact Cristiano (by email or Social media) and Will (email or Social mediaTips, feedback, greetings, etc.