Elon Musk seizes on chaotic election as Biden tweets to make history

The digital delivery of Biden’s historic decision, which was simultaneously posted on Instagram, underscores how social media has reshaped the presidential bully pulpit, becoming the chief news vector for American voters in the most chaotic election cycle of the modern era.

X, which has struggled since the world’s richest man bought it in October 2022, has reemerged as a primary source for an American public hungry for swift news updates — especially in the last tumultuous eight days, which included the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, a groundswell of prominent Democrats calling for Biden to drop out of the race, and a pageant-like Republican National Convention where Trump’s nomination was secured.

In the almost 21 months since the Tesla CEO took over X, he has introduced changes to the platform that have effectively made it more difficult to separate fact from fiction online. Musk personally endorsed Trump in the hours after the shooting at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, raising questions about the neutrality of the platform as a source for news. Even though X had added custom icons for MAGA adherents to display their support of Trump during the Republican National Convention, the network was essential for Biden in seeking to get the word out on social media.

“The last week has solidified the dominant role social media has for political communications and breaking news,” said Katie Harbath, a former Facebook public policy director who is now chief global affairs officer at Duco Experts, a tech consulting firm. “It comes with costs but it is the most efficient way to get news to the most number of people as fast as possible.”

Biden was hardly alone in prioritizing social media to share news in recent days. Trump gave his first public response to his assassination attempt on his right-wing platform, Truth Social, where he also announced his choice of Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio as his running mate.

Biden’s missive found a large audience online, amassing more than 180 million views and more than 700,000 likes in the first two hours it was online. His Instagram post gained over 1.1 million “likes,” and simultaneous posts on other Meta-owned social networks saw high engagement.

In news coverage immediately after Biden’s announcement, journalists including Newsportu’s Wolf Blitzer remarked on the significance of the president making the announcement directly to his social media following rather than in a televised address from the Oval Office. Biden, who is recovering from covid, said he would “speak to the Nation later this week in more detail about my decision.”

X CEO Linda Yaccarino posted that her social network is “where history happens,” in a tweet that was panned by some critics who noted it was also happening on Instagram, Facebook and other platforms. Musk called on leaders to “post directly” on X and “not hand the role to intermediaries.”

“Mistakes will be made, but that’s what proves it’s real,” he wrote. “People want authenticity.”

The risks of that approach were immediately evident, as conspiracy theories quickly ricocheted on X and other social media platforms immediately after the announcement. Trump’s allies stoked claims that the Democratic Party had staged a coup and questioned whether Biden authorized the post from his X account.

“One candidate survived assassination,” tweeted venture capitalist David Sacks, who has organized a San Francisco fundraiser on Trump’s behalf and spoke on behalf of him at the RNC. “The other staged a coup. Your choice, America.”

Misinformation researchers warned that Vice President Harris, whom Biden swiftly endorsed to become the Democratic nominee, was uniquely vulnerable to online attacks. Women of color running for office face higher rates of violent threats online, according to a study from the Center for Democracy and Technology.

Other social media users posted silly, humorous and irreverent reactions to the news. Video clips of Harris saying “You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?” tore across X — a reference to a 2023 speech Harris gave urging young people to remember their parents and grandparents. Other coconut-themed content took off on social media, including amateur-created political spots for Harris and a post from a D.C.-based nightclub advertising “$5 Piña Kamala Coconut Shots all night long.” Others joked about the need for Harris to pick a White person to be her vice-presidential candidate.

Even as social media increasingly shapes the election, top tech companies have made drastic changes to the ways their platforms handle news and politics. Social media platforms are becoming increasingly fractured and decentralized as liberals and conservatives flock to partisan corners of the internet to share and react to current events. X has made the most dramatic transformation, as Musk used the platform to espouse right-wing missives and shaped it into a destination in GOP politics, including for a chorus of powerful business and tech leaders who have also been using the platform to stump for the former president.

The result is a platform where conspiracy theories and foreign disinformation spreads with fewer guardrails. After buying it, Musk removed all legacy check marks — Twitter’s years-old way to verify the identity of users — and also began selling the blue marks to anyone willing to pay $8 a month. He also fired Twitter’s trust and safety team, making it easier for harassment and abuse to spread across the platform without accountability.

Musk also leverages X as a slingshot against his perceived opponents, and Sunday’s announcement was no exception as he directly taunted other Silicon Valley leaders who hadn’t endorsed Trump, including Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings.

After the attempted assassination of Trump last weekend, liberals and conservatives alike flooded social media with partisan conspiracies. Such misinformation may only grow in the wake of Biden’s endorsement of Harris, said Nora Benavidez, senior counsel of the digital rights group Free Press.

“In moments this hot and wild, misinfo will surge,” she posted on X.