Elon Musk's America PAC Has Created an Election Denial Cesspool on X

For months, billionaire and X proprietor Elon Musk has utilized his level to stock predetermination conspiracy theories that could undermine religion successful the result of the 2024 election. Last week, the governmental enactment committee (PAC) Musk backs took it a measurement further, launching a radical connected X called the Election Integrity Community. The radical has astir 50,000 members and says that it is meant to beryllium a spot wherever users tin “share imaginable incidents of elector fraud oregon irregularities you spot portion voting successful the 2024 election.”

In practice, it is simply a cesspool of predetermination conspiracy theories, alleging everything from unauthorized immigrants voting to misspelled campaigner names connected ballots. “It's conscionable an predetermination denier jamboree,” says Paul Barrett, lawman manager of the Center for Business and Human Rights astatine New York University, who authored a recent report connected however societal media facilitates governmental violence.

Since endorsing erstwhile president and Republican nominee Donald Trump pursuing the archetypal assassination effort against him successful July, Musk has go 1 of Trump’s astir important fiscal backers, pouring much than $100 cardinal into the America PAC since July. The PAC has besides been a pillar of the Trump campaign’s crushed crippled successful plaything states. WIRED reporting recovered that Blitz Canvassing, a contractor for the PAC, was threatening canvassers successful Michigan, and transporting them successful U-Hauls.

Earlier successful October, Musk appeared astatine a Trump rally successful Butler, Pennsylvania, wherever helium repeated mendacious claims that Democrats would let undocumented immigrants to ballot illegally, and encouraged Trump’s supporters to vote.

In January 2021, the institution past known arsenic Twitter banned Trump’s relationship for incitement to unit during the January 6 insurrection astatine the Capitol. But since taking implicit and rebranding it arsenic X, Musk has fired galore of the radical connected the teams that worked to support mis- and disinformation disconnected the platform. Last year, X fired overmuch of what remained of its elections integrity team. After the quality broke, Musk posted connected X, saying, “Oh you mean the ‘Election Integrity’ Team that was undermining predetermination integrity? Yeah, they’re gone.”

Barrett says that the America PAC’s Election Integrity Community radical augments the enactment of different election-denying groups, similar erstwhile Trump advisor Cleta Mitchell’s Election Integrity Network. “This is simply a parallel anti-election, anti-democracy run designed to sow disorder and laic the groundwork for baseless objections to elections aft Election Day. This is going connected each crossed the country, and it's highly dangerous,” says Barrett. “And we're going to spot the results of it astir instantly erstwhile the polls adjacent connected November 5th.”