Hours before former President Donald J. Trump spoke at a rally in New York last week, rumors started circulating online that a bomb had been discovered nearby. While the report was debunked, Elon Musk nonetheless amplified it in a post to his nearly 200 million followers on X.
It was among dozens of false or misleading posts that Mr. Musk shared on the platform from Monday to Friday last week — after both the second presidential debate and the second apparent assassination attempt on Mr. Trump. In 171 posts and reposts during that frenetic five-day period, the tech mogul railed against illegal immigration, boosted election fraud conspiracy theories and attacked Democratic candidates, according to a New York Times analysis.
Experts who monitor falsehoods and conspiracy theories have long feared that Mr. Musk would use his ownership of X to further pollute the online ecosystem. Since he bought the platform known as Twitter in 2022, he has shown a willingness to elevate unfounded claims as he has embraced a more conservative political posture, including by endorsing Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign in July.
Nearly a third of his posts last week were false, misleading or missing vital context. They included misleading posts claiming Democrats were making memes “illegal” and falsehoods that they want to “open the border” to gain votes from illegal immigrants. His misleading posts were seen more than 800 million times on X, underscoring Mr. Musk’s unique role as the platform’s most-followed account and a significant source of its misleading content.
Mr. Musk did not respond to requests for comment.
Mr. Musk posted plenty of jokes and memes to X last week. But his political opinions and misleading posts often garnered the most attention.
His most-viewed post, seen more than 100 million times, was a misleading projection of the presidential race that showed Mr. Trump winning most battleground states. The data was based on an outdated forecast from Nate Silver, an election modeler. By the time Mr. Musk shared the data, Mr. Silver’s forecast had shifted, suggesting instead that Vice President Kamala Harris was faring better than Mr. Trump. Some users quickly noted that the data was wrong, but Mr. Musk did not remove the post or make a correction.
Though Mr. Musk said in 2022 that “Twitter needs to be politically neutral,” his posts during the election campaign have increasingly reflected his personal politics, which have become more expressly conservative as he has criticized Covid-19 lockdowns, transgender rights and government regulation.
More than half of Mr. Musk’s posts last week focused on politics, with particular attention to immigration, voter fraud and free speech.
They included several posts about new California laws that regulate deepfakes — replicas meant to resemble real people that are created using artificial intelligence. In response, Mr. Musk re-shared a deepfake video of Ms. Harris and falsely claimed that the law would ban all parody. (The law has exceptions for parody and satire.)
Mr. Musk also appeared to embrace Mr. Trump’s recent emphasis on immigration, including his attacks on Haitian migrants in Ohio, by airing his own criticisms of immigration policy.
In one post seen more than 20 million times, Mr. Musk falsely implied that the city manager in Springfield, Ohio, had received reports that backed up the falsehoods. In fact, the manager said there were no “credible” reports.
Mr. Musk also shared a post suggesting that unauthorized immigrants could influence the election outcome. But unauthorized immigrants cannot legally vote, and election officials have repeatedly rejected claims that they could influence elections.
Some of those posts came from far-right influencers and conspiracy theorists on X, many of whom previously stoked doubts about elections and vaccines.
Last Thursday, Mr. Musk shared a post from a right-wing influencer with more than 869,000 followers who is known for sharing conspiracy theories about Sept. 11, misinformation about Covid-19 vaccines and claims that the F.B.I. rigged the 2020 election.
Dozens of Mr. Musk’s posts were flagged by X’s content moderation program, called Community Notes, which relies on participating users to write corrections. Those fact-checks remain as proposals, visible only to users who decide to enroll in the Community Notes program, until a variety of those members endorse making them visible for all users.
Only one post — the false post about the bomb outside a Trump rally — had a visible Community Note, though there were dozens of proposed Community Notes on Mr. Musk’s other posts.
Mr. Musk has not slowed down much since that Friday, the last day analyzed by The Times. The next day, he shared 54 additional posts on X, touching on immigration, the media and the election.
In a post seen more than five million times, Mr. Musk also celebrated the growth of the Community Notes program.
“Request a Community Note whenever you see misleading or simply wrong posts,” he wrote.
A user submitted a Community Note on the post, highlighting the program’s shortcomings. But the note was still a proposal, so the public could not see it.
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