Elon Musk’s Election Misinformation on X Reaches 2 Billion Views, Report Claims

US-(Special Correspondent): Billionaire Elon Musk has shared false or misleading claims about the U.S. election on the social media platform X, garnering around two billion views this year, according to a report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate.

Election and misinformation experts highlighted on Monday that X has become a major channel for spreading false information about crucial battleground states, which are anticipated to play a decisive role in the presidential election outcome.

A representative for X stated that the platform’s Community Notes feature—allowing users to add context to posts—is more effective at identifying misleading information than conventional warning labels.

Since taking control of X (formerly Twitter), Musk has significantly reduced content moderation and laid off thousands of employees. He has expressed support for former President Donald Trump, who is engaged in a close race against Democratic candidate Kamala Harris.

With a following of nearly 203 million, Musk’s influence facilitates “network effects,” where content on X spreads to other platforms like Reddit and Telegram, explained Kathleen Carley, a disinformation expert and computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University. “X serves as a bridge between platforms,” she added.

The Center for Countering Digital Hate found that at least 87 posts by Musk this year contained election-related claims rated as false or misleading by fact-checkers, reaching two billion views.

In Pennsylvania, one of seven critical swing states, some X users have wrongly interpreted actions taken by local election administrators—who flagged incomplete voter registration forms as unprocessable—as signs of election interference, reported Philip Hensley-Robin, Pennsylvania executive director of Common Cause, a nonpartisan group advocating for accountable government and voting rights.

Hensley-Robin emphasized that some X accounts suggested “voter fraud was occurring when, in fact, election officials in all counties were following legal procedures, ensuring only eligible voters cast ballots.”

AI firm Cyabra reported that an X account with 117,000 followers played a significant role in spreading a fake video purportedly showing Pennsylvania mail-in ballots for Trump being destroyed. X’s spokesperson confirmed that the platform acted against many accounts that shared the video.

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