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The X factor: How Trump ally Elon Musk is using social media to prime voter mistrust ahead of 2024 election

CBS News
Summary
Nutrition label

79% Informative

Elon Musk has been a prolific conduit for election misinformation on X, formerly known as Twitter .

Musk has frequently shared conspiratorial narratives that have been vexing to public officials who are trying to maintain Americans ' confidence in the election.

Experts are concerned that such high audience engagement on posts amplifying election fraud conspiracies could set stage for possible post-election chaos.

More than half of Musk 's posts on election security this year relate to non-citizen voting or representation in Congress .

Many repeat conspiracy that Democrats are intentionally allowing an increase in immigration to boost their political power.

Musk engages the most with accounts known to engage in far right ideology.

He also advocates for hand-counting paper ballots without machines, which experts say makes it difficult to audit ballots.

Musk wrote "Those who oppose this are traitors. What is the penalty for traitors again?" The repost had 56.8 million views.

Non-citizen voting refers to voting by unauthorized immigrants, green-card holders, or immigrants on temporary visas.

Federal law requires citizenship to vote in national elections, and voters attest under penalty of perjury.

VR Score

82

Informative language

80

Neutral language

38

Article tone

semi-formal

Language

English

Language complexity

61

Offensive language

possibly offensive

Hate speech

not hateful

Attention-grabbing headline

not detected

Known propaganda techniques

not detected

Time-value

short-lived

External references

26

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/03/06/truth-about-noncitizen-voting-federal-elections/https://cis.org/Report/Impact-Legal-and-Illegal-Immigration-Apportionment-Seats-US-House-Representatives-2020https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1779891581551509970https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1831486742052159886https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1536973965394157569https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/voting-machine-accuracyhttps://socialblade.com/twitter/https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1836456378556387494https://www.pa.gov/en/agencies/vote/elections/post-election-audits/2023-general-rla-report.htmlhttps://bipartisanpolicy.org/report/mail-voting-is-safe-secure/https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/bipartisan-support-expanded-mail-voting-2020-electionshttps://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/mail-ballot-security-features-primerhttps://x.com/elonmusk/status/1546669610509799424https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/07/24/how-removing-unauthorized-immigrants-from-census-statistics-could-affect-house-reapportionment/https://arxiv.org/pdf/2101.08210https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1809374976845156801https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/post-election-auditshttps://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/noncitizen-voting-missing-millionshttps://www.cisa.gov/news-events/news/joint-statement-elections-infrastructure-government-coordinating-council-electionhttps://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24458500-jesse-richman-redacted-reporthttps://www.pa.gov/en/agencies/vote/elections/post-election-audits.htmlhttps://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1749153547382374411?lang=enhttps://x.com/elonmusk/status/1810362613747864027https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1812256998588662068https://twitter.com/juliaingram_https://www.migrationpolicy.org/content/noncitizen-voting-us-elections

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