Since Donald J. Trump won the presidential election, Elon Musk has gone all in on X to promote the incoming administration.
Musk, who owns X, posted on the platform about politics more than 400 times between Tuesday and Friday, celebrating Trump’s victory and talking about the causes that the President-elect should take up in office. Musk’s posts included a photo of himself and his son surrounded by Trump and his family at Mar-a-Lago, as well as another photo of himself with Trump that was captioned “Novus Ordo Seclorum”, a Latin phrase that appears on the dollar bill and means “a new order for the ages”.
Linda Yaccarino, X’s chief executive, also chimed in. In reply to a post this week about the platform’s role in driving political conversation, she wrote, “Reporting for duty.”
Their comments show how Musk is increasingly positioning X as the platform behind the new Trump presidency. Since the election was called on Wednesday, Musk has used X to talk up how bright the future will be under the president-elect. In addition, he has urged X’s users to replace the news media and report on Trump’s triumphant return to office, and has promoted the platform as a go-to destination for continuing conservative conversation.
That comes on top of how Musk has used X as a battering ram for months to support Trump’s campaign. Musk, who endorsed Trump in July, held a wide-ranging audio conversation with him on X in August. That same month, Trump started using his reinstated account on the platform regularly.
On Tuesday, Musk held an audio town hall on the site urging his more than 203 million followers to vote for Trump. The president-elect credited Musk on Wednesday for helping secure his win. “A star is born — Elon!” Trump said during his victory speech.
Musk has “turned X into the church of the conservative movement”, said Steven Livingston, the founding director of the Institute for Data, Democracy and Politics at George Washington University. “It’s gone from that public sphere to a bullhorn.”
Steven Cheung, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, echoed Musk’s criticisms of the news media but did not comment directly on whether X had influenced the outcome of the election.
Musk and X did not respond to requests for comment.
Musk’s transformation of X into a Right-leaning platform began when he bought the social media company in October 2022. Within weeks, he dropped the site’s content moderation guidelines in the name of free speech. Last year, Musk had engineers add a line of code to promote his own account, which quickly propelled him to become the most followed person on the site. Engagement with his posts have since mushroomed, according to X’s metrics.
Nevada for Trump
Trump won Nevada on Saturday, returning the state and its six electoral votes to Republicans for the first time since President George W. Bush carried it in 2004. Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris made multiple campaign stops in the state this year.
New York Times News Service
