Is Musk's X Becoming A Secret 'Propaganda Weapon' For Trump And Republicans?

Since Musk publicly acknowledged his support for former President Trump, his actions have become increasingly high-profile and bold in recent months: not only has he personally taken the stage at major rallies to endorse Trump, but he has also donated a whopping $1.18 billion to Trump's campaign team. In addition, he has proposed a controversial incentive measure - offering a $1 million daily bonus to registered voters in swing states.

However, what many people might not expect is that Musk's greatest contribution to Trump's campaign path is actually in a place that many have overlooked—Musk's X platform.

In 2022, Musk acquired X for $44 billion and has since implemented several drastic reforms, which have sparked considerable controversy. According to an analysis by the American media, under Musk's control, this global social media platform now seems to be becoming increasingly pro-Republican.

The Washington Post's data analysis of political tweets over the past year shows that although politicians from both parties are striving for attention as the election approaches, the tweets from Republican officials seem to receive much more attention.

Has X Become A Pro-Republican Platform?

Using data provided by the National Conference on Citizenship, The Washington Post analyzed about 150,000 political tweets since July 2023, regarding follower numbers, views, and other information, and reviewed the accounts of the top 50 Democratic and top 50 Republican congressmen ranked by platform activity since this summer.

The analysis found that under Musk's management, Republican accounts have significantly benefited: the analysis shows that in recent months, almost all tweets that have gone viral among these congressional officials have come from Republicans, and the number of new followers for Republican accounts has also far exceeded that of Democrats.

Since July 2023, the number of followers for Republicans has increased significantly. Among the top 20 accounts with the most follower growth, 17 belong to Republicans, including Representative Matt Gaetz (Florida) and Senator Josh Hawley (Missouri), whose followers have increased by about 500,000.

One of the few Democrats whose user numbers have increased significantly is Texas Congressman Colin Allred, who has gained about 35,000 new followers in the past year and a half. However, his competitor for the Senate seat, Texas Republican Congressman Ted Cruz, has gained more than 400,000 followers in the same period.

In addition, since last summer, 33 political tweets on X with more than 20 million views have almost all come from Republicans. The analysis also shows that last month, the average view count for posts by Republicans was about 7,900, much higher than the average view count for posts by Democrats - 4,100.

Furthermore, the number of posts by Republicans has also increased significantly, allowing their total views to far exceed those of Democrats. The analysis found that since July 2023, the total views of Republican tweets have exceeded 7.5 billion, more than double the 3.3 billion of Democrats.

Is Twitter Really Changed?

This shift in the X platform has already caused unease among Democrats. In this crucial election year, the loss of exposure on the important social media platform X is almost equivalent to losing a large number of opportunities to output positions and compete for support online.

It's not a right-leaning platform, it's right-led, said Shannon McGregor, an associate professor at the University of North Carolina who studies social media platforms. In the past, political actors on both sides saw Twitter as the place to go to get news coverage and a sense of how people were reacting ... but it doesn't have that real political centrality anymore.

Now, for Republicans, it's become a place for partisan signaling - to the leader of the party; to the owner, who's very close to him; to each other - that I'm a good Republican, and this is what that looks like now.

According to a person familiar with the discussions within the Biden administration, this shift has already raised alarm among White House officials, who are concerned that the decline in exposure of their official X accounts may hinder their ability to engage with the American public.

The analysis found that the average view count for the White House's X official account has dropped from over 200,000 last summer to about 100,000 now.

Why is X Becoming More Right-leaning?

The Washington Post analysis suggests that the platform is becoming more right-leaning possibly because many of Musk's controversial remarks and X's newly formulated platform rules have angered many left-wing individuals, causing them to actively leave the X platform.

In addition, Musk's previous modification of X's recommendation rules may also be a reason for the platform's shift. After the modification of the recommendation rules, X will be determined by algorithms to promote or hide which posts in people's information streams and will prioritize promoting popular content on the platform rather than posts from accounts that users follow. Under this opaque recommendation system, it will be difficult for people to know why some tweets spread more easily than others.

Some Democrats have also suggested that X seems to adopt stricter regulatory measures when dealing with accounts with left-leaning positions. For example, the platform had briefly closed an account called White Dudes for Harris without giving a reason for the suspension. Before being closed, the account had just raised millions of dollars for Vice President Harris's campaign. New York Democratic Congressman Jerry Nadler described this action as platform censorship.

In fact, in addition to the ambiguous algorithmic recommendations and platform censorship, Musk has also had a history of explicitly using the platform to express his own position.

In February of last year, because a tweet about the Super Bowl posted by Musk did not get as many views as Biden's, he immediately convened a team of dozens of X engineers to work overnight to greatly increase the priority of his X tweet delivery to maximize global attention to him.

In August of this year, Musk placed his two-hour interview live broadcast with Trump in the most prominent position on the X platform to ensure that all X users could see the interview, which ultimately attracted more than 1 million people to watch at the same time.

However in June of this year, Musk himself emphasized that the X platform is neutral. However, judging from the fact that many neutral users have received pro-Republican tweets, in the chaos of the U.S. election, Musk seems to have turned the X platform in his hands into a sharp weapon to defend the Republicans and support Trump.