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      Giggling Elon Musk revisits ‘joke’ about Kamala Harris assassination

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      Elon Musk has said it would be “pointless” to try to kill Kamala Harris weeks after a pressure campaign led to him to delete a social media post expressing surprise that no one had tried to assassinate the vice-president or Joe Biden.The Tesla and Space X entrepreneur re-entered the murky waters of political assassinations in a web video interview with the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson which Musk then posted on the X platform that he owns.Referencing the original comment at the beginning of the one hour and 48 minute exchange, Musk tells Carlson: “I made a joke, which I realised – I deleted – which is like: nobody’s even bothering to try to kill Kamala because it’s pointless. What do you achieve?”Both men dissolved into laughter, with Carlson responding: “It’s deep and true though.”“Just buy another puppet,” Musk continues, before adding: “Nobody’s tried to kill Joe Biden. It’d be pointless.”“Totally,” agrees Carlson.Invited to elaborate on the post, Musk goes on: “Some people interpreted it as though I was calling for people to assassinate her, but I was like … Does it seem strange that no one’s even bothered? Nobody tries to assassinate a puppet … She’s safe.”“That’s hilarious,” Carlson deadpans, as his guest laughs at his own joke.Authorities have notably made multiple arrests of individuals who have made death threats against Harris and Biden. A Virginia man was arrested in August and charged with making threats against the vice-president.Musk’s original comment on X was posted in the immediate aftermath of a suspected second assassination attempt on Donald Trump last month. On 15 September, a man was arrested after a Secret Service agent spotted the barrel of a gun sticking out of bushes at the former president’s golf club in Palm Beach, Florida. A suspect, Ryan Routh, has since been charged with trying to kill Trump. He denies the charges.“And no one’s even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala,” Musk wrote after the incident, with a emoji symbolising puzzlement attached.Musk, a vocal and committed supporter of Trump’s campaign to re-enter the White House, later deleted the post amid an angry backlash and comments from the Secret Service that it was “aware” of it.“Well, one lesson I’ve learned is that just because I say something to a group and they laugh doesn’t mean it’s going to be all that hilarious as a post on 𝕏,” he later wrote in explanation.“Turns out that jokes are WAY less funny if people don’t know the context and the delivery is plain text.”The interviewer then laughed uproariously after suggesting to his guest: “If he [Trump] loses man … you’re fucked, dude.”Musk bantered back: “I’m fucked. If he loses, I’m fucked.”To the sound of general background laughter and Carlson’s obvious delight, the tech billionaire continued: “How long do you think my prison sentence is going to be. Will I see my children, I don’t know.”Musk’s latest assassination comments came just days after he appeared on stage with Trump last weekend at the same site in Butler, Pennsylvania, where a would-be assassin tried to kill the ex-president on 13 July. In that instance, Trump’s ear was grazed with a bullet and a rally-goer was shot dead before the perpetrator himself was killed by a Secret Service agent.Trump was endorsed by Musk moments after that attempt. He later said he would appoint Musk to lead a government efficiency commission if he became president again.The Secret Service – which stepped up its security protection for Trump following criticism of its failure to prevent the first assassination attempt – has said it is familiar with Musk’s latest comments, according to the Washington Post. More

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      ‘Every day is a new conspiracy’: behind Trump’s ironclad grip on rightwing media

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      In the last few months, Donald Trump has done interviews with rightwing Twitch streamer Adin Ross and a host of podcasters, including Dr Phil, comedian Theo Von, computer scientist Lex Fridman, and YouTuber Logan Paul – part of what the Atlantic has dubbed Trump’s “red-pill podcast tour”.He’s posted incessantly on his own social media platform, Truth Social. He did a live space on Twitter/X with the platform’s owner, Elon Musk. He talked with Fox’s Laura Ingraham and called into Fox & Friends and spoke to other Fox hosts and personalities.His media strategy aligns with the current state of the rightwing media landscape: Fox is still a dominant source, but for the most Maga-adherent, it’s not Trumpy enough, despite some of its hosts embracing election denialism around the 2020 US election. Instead, there’s increasing fragmentation thanks to influencers and lesser-known outlets built around Trumpism.This is the first election since Tucker Carlson, once Fox’s loudest voice in a primetime spot, was reportedly fired by the network, and his solo ventures so far haven’t taken on the prominence he had on TV. It’s also the first election since longtime Republican heavyweight Rush Limbaugh died. These big changes have left holes in rightwing media, which were filled by an increasing cadre of influencers, content creators and smaller outlets.Adrianna Munoz, a 58-year-old from Queens, New York, who attended a Trump rally earlier this year in the Bronx, told the Guardian that she mostly gets news from YouTube, X and conservative commentators she follows, such as Tim Pool and Benny Johnson.“I used to watch TV news every morning – network news and the local news channel in New York,” she said. “Now I don’t. They sold out. They don’t tell you the truth. I don’t want to hear that rubbish.”Trump’s grip on rightwing media is ironclad, said Julie Millican, the vice-president of Media Matters, a progressive center that tracks conservative media. In the past, the Republican party and its candidates would follow what rightwing media did and align its policies that way – but now, the media follows Trump, she said.“If you don’t capitulate to what Trump and his enablers and his supporters are looking for, then they’ll shut you out,” Millican said. Since his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, his influence has only increased, and “now he has a stronger control over the entire media ecosystem than he did previously”, she added.As rightwing outlets rise, the stories they cover differ more from what’s on mainstream news, furthering the bubbles a divided United States lives within. While in years past, you’d find different takes on the day’s news in left- and right-leaning outlets, you’ll now find stories that exist solely on rightwing media, Millican said.“It’s like every day is a new conspiracy or a new attack, and it’s just hard to even keep up on it anymore,” she said. “Half the time, when you listen to somebody who consumes nothing but rightwing media, you have no idea what they’re talking about.”TV news and rightwing websitesTraffic to news websites, including rightwing sites, is down compared with 2020. Howard Polskin, who tracks conservative media on his site The Righting, said a few factors play into the decrease. Facebook and other Meta social media de-emphasize news content now, sending less traffic to news outlets. And 2020 had several major news events colliding: a pandemic that kept people online more, nationwide protests over racial justice and a hotly contested election.Polskin tracks monthly visits to rightwing sites and produces traffic reports. The top 10 for August 2024: Fox, Outkick (a sports and commentary site owned by Fox), Newsmax, Epoch Times, National Review, Washington Times, Daily Wire, TheBlaze, Washington Examiner and Daily Caller. Gateway Pundit is not far behind, and InfoWars, the once-maligned site headed by bankrupted conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, is in the top 20.View image in fullscreenNo single star has taken the place that Carlson or Limbaugh once held. Some conservatives told the Guardian they stopped watching Fox as often after Carlson left or because the network isn’t Maga enough. Fox agreed to pay $787m to settle a lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems over defamation claims for spreading lies about the voting machine company’s role the 2020 election. Carlson abruptly left the network shortly after the settlement, and he has claimed his firing came as a result of the settlement. Fox denies that his removal had anything to do with the Dominion case.Frank Lipsett, a 63-year-old from the south Bronx who works as a residential housing superintendent, said he watches Fox because it’s “the most honest and most informative outlet, though I’m not saying they are perfect”.Like many on the right, he has stopped reading mainstream newspapers because “they are not telling the truth.” He said he sometimes reads the New York Post, a rightwing tabloid paper owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, the same owner as Fox.Another paper, Epoch Times, a far-right and anti-China outlet associated with the Falun Gong religion, continues to rank highly among conservative news outlets despite a justice department lawsuit that alleges it operates as a money laundering and cryptocurrency scam. Its stories are often shared by rightwing politicians or influencers. “Their cultural impact and political impact seems much smaller than the distribution,” Polskin said.Carlene, a 58-year-old from the Upper East Side who attended the Trump rally in the Bronx, said she gets news from the Epoch Times, Daily Wire and X and sometimes tunes into CNN and MSNBC to get the other side.“I watch less Fox News now after they got rid of Tucker Carlson,” she said. “It made me think Fox was just like everyone else.”For the less online Republican, talk radio shows, especially those that run the airwaves in rural areas, play a strong role in setting the conservative message. As newspapers in rural areas have shuttered, creating a crisis in local news, these radio shows are “reaching voters that aren’t tapped into the same media spaces that we often see in these large metropolises on either coast”, Tripodi said.To fill Fox’s void on TV, some conservatives have turned to Newsmax or One American News Network, which are farther to the right than Fox.“One American News Network and Newsmax did a very good job at establishing themselves as a place that would verify whatever Trump was saying,” Tripodi said.David Fiedler, a 67-year-old retiree from Rock county, Wisconsin, told the Guardian at the Republican National Committee’s Protect the Vote tour in September that he and his wife don’t watch Fox or local news, but they stream podcasts by the Daily Wire or watch Rumble, the rightwing video platform.“Our biggest news thing we watch is Newsmax,” he said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionPodcasts and influencersBeyond television and news sites, a rightwing news consumer will find a growing landscape of podcasts, YouTube channels, Substack newsletters, documentary film-makers and social media influencers all trying to build a following.“For every laid-off journalist, another Substack is born,” Polskin said. “And that just … fractionalizes the news audience even more.”The top of the podcast charts on Spotify and Apple shows a host of conservatives: Shawn Ryan, Candace Owens, Carlson, Megyn Kelly.Ben Shapiro, the conservative commentator, has his own podcast, and his network, the Daily Wire, hosts some of the biggest rightwing pundits. “In terms of just influence and power in the media landscape, to me, he would be someone that’s at the top of that space,” Millican said. Polskin called Shapiro the “800lb gorilla of rightwing podcasts”.Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, is also a major player. His organization is focused on turning college-age people conservative, and he’s been on a tour around the country to college campuses in recent months, in addition to his podcast and social media presence.“He’s almost become like an establishment media figure in his own right, except you would never actually see him on Fox News – his audience tends to be pretty old,” Millican said.While he doesn’t grab a huge share of the podcast market and he’s currently in prison for defying a congressional subpoena related to the January 6 investigation, Steve Bannon has an outsize influence on the right with his War Room show. He gets big-name rightwing politicians as guests and still has Trump’s ear, but he’s never cracked the top 20 in Polskin’s ratings.“Because of him, Project 2025 got on our radar last year because he was one of the early backers in hosting people who were involved with writing it, promoting the key tenants in it,” Millican said. “Small audience, but still influential audience.”Then there are also conspiracy-based websites and social media accounts from unnamed creators, such as End Wokeness, that spread rightwing attack lines that can filter up to the mainstream.David Jansen, who attended a Trump town hall event in La Crosse, Wisconsin, in August, said he watches FrankSpeech, a platform founded by pillow salesperson and election conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell, which streams conservative content, often centered on election denialism.Social mediaAlongside the rise in rightwing influencers and outlets, social media platforms have loosened their content moderation and made changes to how they manage political content. Republican elected officials and outside legal groups have attacked platforms, government employees who interact with them and misinformation researchers, claiming a broad censorship plan is at work to limit conservative voices online.Some organizing on the right happens on closed-off apps such as Telegram, where public figures from the conservative mainstream and the far-right fringes have channels to share news and commentary.The underbelly of Telegram skews darker than other social media: the New York Times called it a “global sewer of criminal activity, disinformation, child sexual abuse material, terrorism and racist incitement”. Neo-Nazis have used the platform to coordinate their activities and have been scrambling after the app’s founder, Pavel Durov, was arrested in France for facilitating criminal activity on the app, Frontline reported.But rightwing organizing isn’t happening solely in far-flung corners of the internet. There is increased rumor-making and amplification on Musk’s X, including by Musk himself, who has shared a wide variety of election-related falsehoods. Trump returned to the platform last year after he was kicked off after the insurrection, but he still posts mostly on Truth Social, where he often rants in all-caps, shares clips from his rallies or reposts content from rightwing media who boost his campaign.Munoz, one of the Bronx Trump rally attendees, uses Telegram and Truth Social. Munoz loves Musk and his changes to X because “you can talk freely now”, he said. “I left Facebook and Instagram because they don’t let you talk.”Ed Pilkington and Alice Herman contributed reporting to this story More

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      Donald Trump makes a theatrical return to Butler, scene of assassination attempt

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      Donald Trump has returned to the site where he narrowly escaped assassination in July, pushing the emotional buttons of his supporters and suggesting that his political opponents “maybe even tried to kill me” to stop him regaining the White House.The Republican presidential nominee – and perennial showman – mounted an unabashedly sentimental spectacle in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday. He was joined by billionaire Elon Musk, who made the baseless claim that if Trump’s supporters fail to turn out, “this will be the last election”.Their joint appearance before an enthusiastic crowd of thousands capped hours of programming seemingly intended to mythologise the 13 July shooting for the Trump base exactly one month before the presidential election.The rally was held, with heightened security, at the same grounds where Trump was grazed in the right ear and one rallygoer – firefighter Corey Comperatore – was killed when a gunman opened fire. The would-be assassin, 20-year-old Thomas Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, was shot and killed by a Secret Service sniper.View image in fullscreenA photo of Trump standing with blood streaked across his face as he raised his fist and shouted “Fight!” became the indelible image of his campaign. Yet Joe Biden’s decision just a week later to step aside and endorse his vice-president, Kamala Harris, stole Trump’s thunder and altered the trajectory of the race.On Saturday Trump became the first former president to return to the scene of his attempted assassination and weaponise it for political gain. His campaign sought to recapture the aura of their candidate as hero and martyr.As he walked out on stage, a video juxtaposed an image of George Washington crossing the Delaware River with the photo of Trump with fist raised. A voice boomed: “This man cannot be stopped. This man cannot be defeated.”“As I was saying …” Trump said as he appeared on stage, gesturing towards an immigration chart that he was looking at when the gunfire began 12 weeks earlier. The crowd, which was overwhelmingly white, roared enthusiastically, holding aloft signs that read “Fight! Fight! Fight!”Standing behind protective glass that now encases the stage at his outdoor rallies, Trump recalled: “On this very ground a cold-blooded assassin aimed to silence me and silence the greatest movement – Maga – in the history of our country … But by the hand of providence and the grace of God that villain did not succeed in his goal. He did not stop our movement.”Trump even seemed to be trying to emulate Abraham Lincoln’s Gettsyburg address as he described the field as a “monument to the valour” of our first responders and prophesied: “Forever afterward, all who have visited this hallowed place will remember what happened here and they will know of the character and courage that so many incredible American patriots have showed.”But Trump also hinted darkly, without evidence, about facing “an enemy from within” more dangerous than any foreign adversary. “Over the past eight years, those who want to stop us from achieving this future have slandered me, impeached me, indicted me, tried to throw me off the ballot, and who knows, maybe even tried to kill me,” he said. “But I’ve never stopped fighting for you and I never will.”Trump saluted volunteer firefighter Comperatore, who was shot and killed by the gunman, and two other supporters who were wounded. A memorial was set up in the bleachers, his firefighter’s jacket surrounded by flowers. Giant screens said “In loving memory of Corey Comperatore”, accompanied by his picture. Comperatore’s family were present.At 6.11pm, the exact time when gunfire erupted on 13 July, Trump called for a moment of silence. A bell then tolled four times, once for each of the four victims, including Trump. Then opera singer Christopher Macchio belted out Ave Maria.Trump then veered into more familiar territory of falsehoods about immigration and other topics. Later he called up on stage Musk, the chief executive of Tesla and owner of social media platform X, who has swerved politically right. Wearing a black cap and black “Occupy Mars” shirt and coat, Musk jumped around with his arms held high and was greeted with cheers.He said: “The true test of someone’s character is how they behave under fire. We had one president who couldn’t climb a flight of stairs and another who was fist-pumping after getting shot! Fight, fight, fight!”Despite Trump’s attempt to stage a coup and cling on to power on 6 January 2021, Musk argued: “President Trump must win to preserve the constitution. He must win to preserve democracy in America. This is a must-win situation. Get everyone you know, drag them to register to vote. If they don’t, this will be the last election. That is my prediction.”View image in fullscreenThe Butler shooting led to widespread criticism of the Secret Service and the resignation of its director. Critics raised concerns about how Crooks was able to access a nearby rooftop with a direct line of sight to where Trump was speaking. In September the former president survived another attempt on his life when a gunman hid undetected for nearly 12 hours at a golf course in one of his Florida clubs.On Saturday there was an intensified security presence with Secret Service and other law enforcement officers in camouflage uniforms stationed on roofs. The building from which Crooks fired was completely obscured by tractor trailers and a fence.The rally had an upbeat atmosphere like a giant picnic. People sat on the grass or foldout chairs and walkers in blazing sunshine. They gazed up into a brilliant blue sky to see four special forces skydivers – one holding a giant Stars and Stripes – jumping from a Cessna 206 plane from more than 5,000 feet, then a flypast of “Trump Force One” accompanied by the theme music from the film Top Gun.One tent displayed paintings of the now famous image of a bloodied Trump with fist raised – reproductions were on sale for up to $200. That photograph was also visible on numerous T-shirts worn by Trump supporters with slogans such as “Fight … fight … fight!”, “American badass”, “Never surrender” and “Fight. Trump 2024. Legends never die”. The commercialisation of the former president’s near death experience was on vivid display.Attendees spoke of their ardent support for Trump, their suspicion that Democrats were behind an assassination plot and that his life had been spared by divine intervention.Patricia King, 82, using a walker, was at the rally in Butler in July with her 63-year-old daughter, Diana, and both felt it was important to return. “I remember the long wait and how hot it was and people being loyal enough to stand there and some of them fainted,” said King, a retired nurse. “I remember the shots going off – pop, pop, pop, pop – and I turned and looked where he was and everybody started running.”King praised Trump’s instinctively combative response that day. “That’s great with me. That’s like: I’m not quitting and that’s what America is about. We don’t quit. Kamala Harris is too weak. I think she’d be asking Putin to have a cup of tea with her, which is not strength to me.”Debbie Hasan, 61, a landlord wearing a Trump 2024 cap, described Saturday’s rally as “history in the making” and recalled the events of 13 July. “I was watching TV and my husband was in the other room. I start screaming: ‘They shot Trump! They shot Trump!’ Then I called my brother and I’m screaming. And then seeing him get up and the fist pump was an awesome sight. He’s a great man.”Hasan outlined a baseless conspiracy theory that Democrats orchestrated the shooting. “I hate to say it, I think they were behind all this. They can’t beat him any other way. They tried putting him in court on all kinds of trumped up charges. They’re at their limit. They don’t know what else to do. They promote hate and prejudice. How they talk about him, some wacko’s going to say, he needs to be keyholed.”View image in fullscreenMany rallygoers echoed Trump’s claim that God saved him in order to save the country. Rodney Moreland, 66, retired from various jobs including welding, truck driving and security, said: “I don’t know if you believe in God but there was an angel around him that day, absolutely. After that happened his demeanour, everything changed about him. Now he’s calm, cool and collected and he’s known what words to say.”But Moreland warned of a possible backlash to the election result. “If it goes the opposite direction, there’s going to be a war. The last election was rigged. They said, we cannot have him stay in office again.”Kristi Masemer, 52, a Walmart worker, wearing a T-shirt that said “I’m still a Trump girl. I make no apologies”, criticised people who said they wished the would-be assassin had killed the former president.“The amount of people who were like, ‘I’m sorry that he missed’. People actually said that about another human being. That’s the Democrat party. Are you kidding me? That’s not humanity. Who would think that?”Masemer praised the restraint of Trump supporters after the assassination attempt. “The best part of all that was the people in the Maga movement after that didn’t riot. We didn’t lash back at these people because we’re not haters. We just want our country back and that’s it.”Butler county, on the western edge of a coveted presidential swing state, is a rural-suburban community and a Trump stronghold. He won the county with about 66% of the vote in both 2016 and 2020. About 57% of Butler county’s 139,000 registered voters are Republicans, compared with about 29% who are Democrats and 14% other parties.Jana Anderson, 62, who works at an animal shelter, said: “I don’t think a woman should be president, only because it’s always been men. I’m a woman but I think men should lead the country, not a woman. Women, in my opinion, are wishy washy. I mean, she says a lot of things, she promises a lot of things, but I don’t know if she’s capable of doing those things.” More

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      Elon Musk says he will attend Trump rally at Pennsylvania shooting site

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      Elon Musk plans to attend Donald Trump’s rally on Saturday at the site in Butler, Pennsylvania, where the former president narrowly avoided assassination in July.“I will be there to support!” the tech billionaire replied to a post by Trump on Musk’s social media platform, X, saying he was returning to the Butler Farm show grounds.Trump’s decision to hold the rally in the same open-air venue came after a series of harsh reports into Secret Service security failures that allowed a gunman to open fire from a rooftop on the outskirts of the fairgrounds.Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, injured the former president, killed rally attender Corey Comperatore and severely wounded two others as he got off clear shots with an assault rifle before he was killed by federal snipers.Trump and his campaign have indicated they will turn the rally into a triumphant return for the former president, as well as a way to honor those who were killed or injured.Comperatore’s family will attend, along with those injured in the gunfire, Trump and his campaign have said.“What you’re going to see in Butler … tomorrow is the kind of strength and leadership that we are desperate for back in that White House. I think it’s going to be an emotional rally,” Lara Trump told Fox News.The Pittsburgh Gazette said crowd estimates for Saturday’s planned event ranged from 15,000 to as high as 100,000. The Secret Service is expecting as many as 60,000 people.“There is a pilgrimage sense at all the rallies, but this is going to be the one,” said Jen Golbeck, a University of Maryland professor, told the newspaper. “There are definitely people who feel like – and say to me – the hand of God has touched Trump.”Trump said, “I had God on my side” in surviving the shooting and the “providential” moment, which also produced one of the 2024 presidential campaign’s – and any election in US history – most potent images, with Trump rising from a Secret Service huddle, blood streaked across his face, raising his fist and shouting “Fight!”Religious interpretations aside, the assassination attempt was the first of two Trump has now faced. Last month, 58-year-old Ryan Wesley Routh allegedly aspired to shoot the former president on Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida.Trump has also faced ongoing death threats from Iran, which is also blamed for hacking into his campaign.Trump has accused the Biden administration of intentionally denying security resources to help Kamala Harris, the US vice-president and his Democratic opponent in the November election, by preventing him from addressing large crowds, a signature of his political life.“They couldn’t give me any help. And I’m so angry about it because what they’re doing is interfering in the election,” he said in a Fox News interview.Changes have been made to what he can do on the campaign trail and Trump staffers are on edge, the Associated Press reported. There have been death threats directed at his aides, and his team isn’t as able to quickly organize the mass rallies he prefers.View image in fullscreenArmed security officers stand guard at the campaign’s Florida headquarters, and staff have been told to remain vigilant and alert.Events have been canceled and moved around because the Secret Service lacked the resources to safely secure them. Even with the use of glass barricades to protect Trump on stage, there are concerns about holding additional rallies outdoors due to fears about drones.Trump also now travels with a larger security footprint, with new traffic restrictions outside his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida, and a line of dump trucks and big guns on display outside Trump Tower in New York when he is staying there.The Secret Service spokesperson, Anthony Guglielmi, said that Trump “is receiving heightened levels of US Secret Service protection” and that “our top priority is mitigating risks to ensure his continued safety at all times.”Leslie Osche, Butler county commissioners chair, told Pittsburgh’s Action News 4 that officials were “confident” about security at Saturday’s event.Musk has endorsedTrump for another term in the White House. On Friday, the tech billionaire also retweeted a post calling Saturday’s event “HISTORIC!” More

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      Musk’s millions in rightwing gifts began earlier than previously known – report

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      Elon Musk has given tens of millions of dollars to rightwing groups in recent years, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, revealing his backing for Republican groups began earlier than was previously known.Musk endorsed Trump earlier this year and has been a prolific booster of misinformation in support of the president’s re-election bid on X, the website he owns. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this year that Musk had said he planned to donate $45m each month to a Super Pac backing Trump (Musk has denied the report).But the Wall Street Journal’s reporting on Thursday revealed that Musk has already been spending tens of millions of dollars to back conservative causes. In 2022, he spent more than $50m to fund anti-immigrant and anti-transgender advertisements by a group called Citizens for Sanity. The group’s officers are employees of America First Legal, a non-profit led by Stephen Miller, a close former Trump aide.Musk also has donated millions to another rightwing group, Building America’s Future, Reuters reported on Thursday. The outlet reported the timeline and exact amount he has given were not clear.The group has focused on reducing Kamala Harris’s support among Black voters, according to NBC News. The group has also launched advertising criticizing Joe Biden and Harris for their support at the border.A Super Pac started by Musk, America Pac, has spent at least $71m on the presidential election, according to Bloomberg. The Trump campaign has largely outsourced its get-out-the-vote operation to the Pac.In 2023, Musk also gave $10m to support the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, in his bid for president, the Wall Street Journal reported. Musk publicly said in 2022 he would support DeSantis for president.“My preference for the 2024 presidency is someone sensible and centrist. I had hoped that would the case for the Biden administration, but have been disappointed so far,” he said at the time.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMusk’s donations to the groups were kept quiet, Reuters and the Wall Street Journal reported. He funneled money through social welfare groups that are not required to disclose their donors. People involved in his donations to Citizens for Sanity would use Signal, an encrypted messaging app, to discuss the transactions, the Wall Street Journal reported. More

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      Elon Musk has gained a concerning level of power over US national security | Robert Reich

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      Shortly after the apparent second assassination attempt against Donald Trump, Elon Musk wrote in a now deleted post on X, formerly known as Twitter: “And no one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala,” with an emoji of a person thinking.Musk later said his post was intended as a joke. But it could be interpreted as a call to murder Joe Biden and Kamala Harris – at least by one of Musk’s almost 200 million followers – which is presumably why the Secret Service is investigating it.Under 18 US Code Section 871, threatening a president or vice-president or inciting someone to harm them is a felony that can result in a large fine and up to five years in prison.Yet even as Musk posted a potential death threat against the sitting commander-in-chief, his multiple defense contracts with the US government have given him access to highly sensitive national security information.Musk has reportedly gained national security clearance notwithstanding his admitted use of drugs, not necessarily illegally: the tech billionaire, who says he has submitted to random drug testing at the request of the government, has smoked weed in public and also uses ketamine (for which he claims to have a prescription).Apart from the drugs, when was the last time the US government gave access to sensitive national security information to someone who posted a potential death threat against the president and vice-president?Underlying this is a broader question: when in history has one unelected individual held such sway over US national security?Musk’s SpaceX has nearly total control of the world’s satellite internet through its Starlink unit. With little regulation or oversight, Musk has already put more than 4,500 Starlink satellites into orbit around the globe, accounting for more than half of all active satellites. He plans to have as many as 42,000 satellites in orbit in the coming years.SpaceX and its Starlink system have become strategically critical to the American military. Starlink is providing connectivity to the US navy. The US space force signed a $70m contract with SpaceX late last year for military-grade low-Earth-orbit satellite capabilities. According to Reuters, the National Reconnaissance Office, which oversees US spy satellites, has a $1.8bn contract with SpaceX.This gives Musk, the richest person in the world, remarkable power. Single-handedly, he can decide to shut down a country’s access to Starlink and the internet. He also can also gain access to sensitive information gathered by Starlink. “Between, Tesla, Starlink & Twitter, I may have more real-time global economic data in one head than anyone ever,” Musk tweeted in April 2023.Meanwhile, Nasa has increasingly outsourced spaceflight projects to SpaceX, including billions in contracts for multiple moon trips and $843m to build a vehicle that will take the International Space Station out of commission.Conflicts of interest between Musk’s ventures around the world and US national security abound, and they are multiplying.When Vladimir Putin attacked Ukraine, Musk and SpaceX’s Starlink provided Ukraine with internet access, enabling the country to plan attacks and defend itself. (This was not a charitable move by Musk; most of the 20,000 terminals in the country were funded by outside sources such as the US government and those of the United Kingdom and Poland).But in the fall of 2022, when Ukraine entered territory contested by Russia, Musk and SpaceX abruptly severed the connectivity. Musk explained at the time: “Starlink was barred from turning on satellite beams in Crimea at the time, because doing so would violate US sanctions against Russia!”But who was Musk to decide what actions would or would not violate US sanctions?skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn fact, it seems as if Musk was trying to push Ukraine to agree to Russia’s terms for ending the war.At a conference in Aspen attended by business and political figures, he appeared to support Putin. “He was onstage, and he said: ‘We should be negotiating. Putin wants peace – we should be negotiating peace with Putin,’” Reid Hoffman, the co-founder and executive chairman of LinkedIn, recalled. Musk seemed to have “bought what Putin was selling, hook, line, and sinker”.Soon thereafter, Musk tweeted a proposal for his own peace plan, calling for referendums to redraw the borders of Ukraine and grant Russia control of Crimea. In subsequent tweets, Musk portrayed a Russian victory as virtually inevitable, and attached maps highlighting eastern Ukrainian territories, some of which, he argued, “prefer Russia”.US foreign policy experts also worry about the conflicts of interest posed by Musk’s acquisition of Twitter (now X), given his business relationships and communications with the Chinese government. China has used X for disinformation campaigns.Some are concerned that China may have leverage over Musk due to his giant Tesla factory in Shanghai, which accounts for over half of Tesla’s global deliveries and the bulk of its profits, and the battery factory he’s building there. “Elon Musk has deep financial exposure to China,” warned Mark Warner, US senator from Virginia, who chairs the Senate intelligence committee.Most of these concerns, by the way, came before Musk reactivated the accounts of conspiracy theorists and white nationalists on X and began pushing his own rightwing narrative on the platform, and before he announced his support for Trump in the upcoming election and posted a potential incitement to assassinate Biden and Harris.Elon Musk poses a clear and present danger to American national security. The sooner the US government revokes his security clearance, terminates its contracts with him and the entities he controls, and builds its own alternatives to Starlink and SpaceX, the safer America will be.

      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy at the University of California Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His newest book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com More

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      Elon Musk’s Twitter coup has harmed the right. They are now simply ‘too online’ | Paolo Gerbaudo

      by

      In the aftermath of Donald Trump’s shock victory in 2016, one common explanation for why the Democrats had not seen it coming was that they had succumbed to the social media echo chamber. The fact that many digital platforms, such as Twitter (now X), tended to be dominated by liberals had lured Democrats into a false sense of security. This, so the explanation went, made them complacent, leading to inconsiderate gestures that alienated sections of the electorate: Hillary Clinton’s infamous jab at Trump’s supporters as “deplorables” was often cited as a prime example.With the internet ever more captive to the caprices of timeline algorithms, the risk of echo chambers is even greater in this election cycle. However, it is now Trump and the broader political right that is – to use the internet lingo – “too online”.The rightwing surge seen in many countries’ recent elections, especially in Europe, has been paralleled (and supported) by a significant rise of the right’s influence online. As documented by much academic research on social media and politics, the leading influencers on platforms such as YouTube, X and the instant messaging platform Telegram are rightwing. On many of these platforms, the conversation has increasingly shifted towards rightwing themes and positions, with rightwing messages tending to circulate more widely.This social media hegemony, which has been in the making for many years and was cemented by Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover, has now created a right that harbours a similar sense of delusion and complacency to the one that, in the past, has proved so detrimental for progressives.Consider the way vice-presidential candidate JD Vance has brazenly doubled down on his 2021 comment about “childless cat ladies”; or widely ridiculed – and dangerous – online hoaxes about cats and dogs being eaten by Haitian immigrants, which appear to have travelled from Facebook to the mouth of the Republican candidate in a matter of days; or Musk’s creepy rebuke concerning Taylor Swift after the pop singer endorsed Kamala Harris, offering to “give her a child”. Such extreme messaging does cater to the Maga (Make America great again) crowd of true believers – but it comes at the electoral cost of potentially alienating large swaths of the moderate voting-age population.As political scientists have long observed, a party’s rank and file is more ideologically extreme than its electorate. If leaders get trapped in the militant core, they can end up developing an unrealistic appraisal of the opinion of their target voters. This is precisely what 24/7 immersion in social media, with their plebiscitary pseudo-democracy of instant reactions and echo chambers, is all too likely to produce.Obsession with social media and its popularity contest can also lead to unwise choice of political personnel. JD Vance was appointed as running mate by Trump on the back of vocal support from Silicon Valley and the fervour of his social media followers. Yet, Vance is viewed favourably by a miserly 36% of the electorate, compared with 48% support for his opponent Tim Walz, according to a recent USA Today poll. Trump himself has been criticised by allies because of his closeness to internet personality Laura Loomer, a self-described “white advocate” who has built a successful career by catering to far-right digital cesspits.A key factor in this radicalisation spiral has been Musk’s transformation of broadly liberal Twitter into the reactionary X. Spending $44bn on the purchase certainly made no economic sense, but it seemed to make much political sense. Taking the reins of a platform widely recognised as a sort of “social media of record”, or official debating chamber of the internet, capable of shaping the news agenda and public perception, offered the opportunity to fiddle with the formation of public opinion – and this is precisely what Musk did in three waysFirst, he has shamelessly granted himself enormous algorithmic privileges, which reportedly boost his messages by a factor of 1,000. He has used this colossal power of amplification by conversing with, and therefore boosting, hard-right extremist accounts, spreading fake news and publishing AI-manufactured images, such as one showing Kamala Harris in communist attire.Second, by reactivating tens of thousands of accounts – including those of Nazis and antisemites – who had been suspended or banned for violating community guidelines, Musk has goaded liberal and left users to leave the platform out of disgust, therefore effectively shifting the balance of the conversation to the right.Third, there have been the effects of his “blue check” scheme, which has fundamentally transformed the dynamics of participation on the platform. Now, in any conversation, the top replies are from people with blue checks, who appear to be overwhelmingly right-leaning, largely because of the way more progressive users have boycotted the service out of their animosity towards Musk.Musk’s “Twitter coup” has offered a new home to those who had retreated to Maga platforms such as Truth Social and Parler. But in so doing it has also led to the creation of a macroscopic reactionary echo chamber, which feeds into the right’s confirmation bias and self-complacency.Ultimately, the reason why rightwing politicians and their billionaire allies invest so much energy and resources into social media is that these platforms can influence people’s opinions in a more organic way than traditional forms of political communication. The irony here is that in attempting to use its money and power to shift the discursive dial, the right might have inadvertently undermined its own prospects.

      Paolo Gerbaudo is a sociologist and the author of The Great Recoil: Politics after Populism and Pandemic More