Elon’s politics: how Musk became a driver of elections misinformation

When Elon Musk took over as owner of Twitter, researchers and elections officials feared a rampant spread of misinformation that would lead to threats and harassment and undermine democracy.

Their fears came true - and Musk himself has emerged as one of its main drivers.

The tech billionaire has cast doubt on machines that tabulate votes and mail ballots, both common features of US elections. He has repeatedly claimed there is rampant non-citizen voting, a frequent Republican talking point in this election.

Musk, the ultra-wealthy owner of Tesla and other tech companies, is scheduled to interview Donald Trump on Monday, where they are sure to find common ground on these election conspiracy theories. Musk is a vocal supporter of the former US president and current Republican nominee. He has restored the Twitter/X accounts of people banned under previous ownership, dismantling the platform's fact-checking and safety features. Trump's X account, which was suspended after the January 6 insurrection, was restored as well, though Trump has not returned actively to the platform.

"Electronic voting machines and anything mailed in is too risky. We should mandate paper ballots and in-person voting only," he wrote on X in July.

Maricopa county recorder Stephen Richer responded, asking if he could give Musk a tour of the large Arizona county's facilities and run through the mail voting processes.

"You can go into all the rooms. You can examine all the equipment. You can ask any question you want. We'd love to show you the security steps already in place, which I think are very sound," Richer said.

It was not the only time Richer has sought to correct election misinformation Musk had shared. He previously tried to fix misunderstandings of Arizona voter data and rules for proof of citizenship.

Social media platforms overall have taken less aggressive stances on fact-checking election falsehoods after an ongoing campaign by Republican lawmakers and their allies to attack the ways information was flagged by elected officials and researchers and how platforms responded.

"I think X really kind of sticks out as a place where that change has been striking, and for it to come from the very top kind of just shows how much of an issue it is," said Mekela Panditharatne, senior counsel for the Brennan Center's elections and government program.

Musk shared a video that used an AI-generated voice for Kamala Harris, which raised concerns that it could fool some people into thinking it was real. Musk and the video creator defended it as parody.

He has also written multiple times claiming that non-citizens are voting in US elections, which is illegal except in a few local elections. There are few instances of non-citizens voting, or even registering to vote. In late July, he shared a video of Elizabeth Warren talking about a pathway to citizenship for the millions of undocumented people living in the US. "As I was saying, they're importing voters," he said, a nod to "great replacement" theory.

Grok, the platform's artificial intelligence chatbot that Musk has billed as an "anti-woke" antidote to left-biased chatbots, has spread false information that ballot deadlines had passed in nine states, meaning the vice-president could not get on the ballot in those places, which is untrue. Secretaries of state are urging Musk to fix this issue for the chatbot, which does not have election information guardrails that other chatbots like ChatGPT do.

"It's important that social media companies, especially those with global reach, correct mistakes of their own making - as in the case of the Grok AI chatbot simply getting the rules wrong," Minnesota secretary of state Steve Simon told the Washington Post. "Speaking out now will hopefully reduce the risk that any social media company will decline or delay correction of its own mistakes between now and the November election."

Off the platform, a political action committee Musk created is mining personal information from voters in key states in what appears to users to initially look like a voter registration portal, CNBC reported. America Pac, a pro-Trump group backed by Musk's enormous wealth, is targeting swing states voters. The data scraping is now being investigated by at least two states.

Despite his endless claims about election fraud, Musk told the Atlantic this month he would accept the results of the 2024 election - with a caveat.

"If there are questions of election integrity, they should be properly investigated and neither be dismissed out of hand nor unreasonably questioned," he said. "If, after review of the election results, it turns out that Kamala wins, that win should be recognized and not disputed."