Elon Musk’s America PAC has created an election denial cesspool on X

Billionaire and ex boss for months Elon Musk has used its platform to share election conspiracy theories that could undermine confidence in the outcome of the 2024 election. Last week, the Political Action Committee (PAC) musk behind Taking it a step further, launched a group on X called the Election Integrity Community. The group has about 50,000 members and says it’s a place where users can “share potential incidents of voter fraud or irregularities observed during voting in the 2024 election.”

In practice, it’s a plethora of election conspiracy theories, alleging everything from unauthorized immigrants voting to candidates’ names being misspelled on ballots. “This is just a hoax about election denial,” says Paul Barrett, deputy director of the Center for Business and Human Rights at New York University. recent reports How social media promotes political violence.

since approve of Following the first assassination attempt against former President and Republican nominee Donald Trump in July, Musk has become one of Trump’s most significant financial supporters, spending more and more money. $100 Million in America PAC From July. The PAC has also been a pillar of the Trump campaign’s ground game in swing states. WIRED reporting found that Blitz Canvassing was a contractor of the PAC Threatening preachers in Michigan, and taking them to U-Hauls,

Earlier in October, Musk Appeared at Trump’s rally in Butler, PennsylvaniaWhere he repeated false claims that Democrats would allow undocumented immigrants to vote illegally, and encouraged Trump’s supporters to vote.

In January 2021, the company, then known as Twitter, banned Trump’s account for inciting violence during the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol. But since taking it over and rebranding it as has fired several people from teams that worked to keep misinformation and disinformation off the platformLast year, X took out a lot Remain a member of your election integrity teamMusk after the news Posted on xSaying, “Oh, you mean the ‘election integrity’ team that was undermining the integrity of the election? Yes, they are gone.”

Barrett says America PAC’s Election Integrity Community Group builds on the work of other election denial groups in the past. Trump advisor Cleta Mitchell’s Election Integrity Network“This is a parallel anti-election, anti-democracy campaign designed to create confusion and lay the groundwork for baseless objections to the elections after Election Day. “This is going on across the country and it’s extremely dangerous,” says Barrett. “And we’re going to see the consequences of this almost immediately when the polls close on November 5.”