ElectionX: Musk puts his platform at the service of Trump's campaign

Two years after buying Twitter, Elon Musk is looking to add a very valuable asset to his portfolio: a presidential election. In his efforts to get Donald Trump back into the White House, Musk has promoted million-dollar sweepstakes, lent his image and checkbook to the election cause, and through his platform has amplified disinformation messages that reach hundreds of millions of people.

Musk officially added his support for Trump on July 13, minutes after the former president suffered an attack during a political rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. In early October, when the former president returned to hold a campaign rally in the same city, where he had left surrounded by bodyguards and with a bleeding ear, Musk jumped onto the stage wearing a cap that read "Make America Great Again."

The owner of X has conducted a tour of Pennsylvania. In his first speech, he advocated deregulation, which according to his vision is necessary to fulfill his ambitious project of colonizing Mars; he promoted the theory that a Kamala Harris government could leave the United States under a one-party system, and put forward the idea that the future of civilization was at stake in these votes.

In an effort to recruit voters to his crusade for humanity, Musk has embarked on strategies that border on the legal. In the final stretch of the campaign, America PAC - the political action committee he organized and has pumped $75 million into - is raffling off $1 million a day to those who have signed a petition in defense of the First and Second Amendments to the Constitution, which protect free speech and the bearing of arms in the United States. To sign, it is necessary to be a registered voter, and at the same time the signature endorses people to attend rallies organized by Musk.

The strategy targets citizens in seven battleground or swing states, i.e., those that do not have a strong Democratic or Republican leaning and whose voting - under the U.S. electoral system - has the potential to define the election.

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For some, this maneuver could have legal consequences. Last Wednesday, it was learned that the Department of Justice had sent America PAC a warning that these sweepstakes could constitute federal crimes, as the law prohibits paying someone to vote or to register to vote.

Trump has expressed interest in an advisory role for Musk in his eventual second term. In August, the former president mentioned that he would consider putting him in charge of an agency in charge of improving state efficiency, which would translate into cuts. Some have warned of the potential conflicts of interest that this scenario would present, as the tycoon would have the ability to directly influence the agencies that currently regulate some of the activities in which his companies, such as SpaceX or Tesla, are engaged.

Musk has turned his X account -where he is the main influencer- into a broadcasting organ for Trump's campaign. Through this megaphone, the entrepreneur has not only expressed his support, but has promoted misleading narratives that have even been flagged by the platform's fact-checking system.

According to CBS News research, more than half of the posts in which Musk refers to election integrity - which on average have a reach of 9.3 million - contain false or misleading statements, or amplify other voices that do.

The X owner's narratives focus primarily on three themes: the idea that illegal immigrants could impact elections, as well as flaws in voting machines and mail-in voting. Musk has revived demonstrably false ideas about the 2020 election, such as an alleged fraud committed in Philadelphia and Arizona through the company Dominion Voting Systems.

Recently, America PAC launched a community on X focused on exposing alleged cases of election interference and fraud, and where some publications already present the elections as an "active crime scene".

Until recently, such claims were prohibited under X's rules. However, last year the company amended its election integrity policies, which prohibited disclosing unverified information about fraud or content that undermines confidence in an election process through disinformation narratives related to vote counting.

Some researchers have warned about how Musk's interaction with radical accounts can unintentionally amplify extremist views and misinformation. To put it in perspective, Musk has 200 million followers on the platform, twice as many users as that social network has in the United States, according to Statista data.