The Media Research Center remains in denial that Elon Musk — by himself and through his X platform — has engaged in election interference and spreading election-related disinformation. Clay Waters huffed in an Oct. 25 post:
New York Times reporter, social media censorship supporter, and First Amendment non-fan Steven Lee Myers’ “news analysis” led Thursday’s front page: “Voters Strain Under Deluge Of Untruths — Disinformation Climbs to a Sordid New Peak.”
And who’s responsible? The Russians, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and Republicans in general.
Myers noted false claims from Russia about Gov. Tim Walz being spread on social media by a Florida deputy sheriff, then transitioned smoothly to blame “the world’s richest man, Elon Musk” for helping spread it. (Musk is a billionaire that the Times feels free to criticize, unlike George Soros, who the paper shields by accusing conservative critics of anti-Semitism.)
Well, that’s a reasonable accusation, given that the MRC has invoked anti-Semitic tropes to attack Soros and falsely smear him as a Nazi collaborator.
Waters went on to whine: “And does a sweet image of a girl and a puppy really have a corrosive effect on democracy? If posted by a Republican, then yes, evidently.” He downplayed the fact that the image was a fake, and that a Republican Party official who got caught retweeting the image refused to retract it. Waters also grumbled that “The Times is disappointed that conservatives have taken steps to neutralize Big Government censorship online,” sticking with his employer’s narrative that correcting false and misleading information online is “censorship.”
Meanwhile, the MRC censored more Musk-related information around election time:
- It was revealed that Musk apparently broke immigration law by overstaying his student visa to remain in the U.S. and dropping out of school to get a job. (Musk denied it, but offered no proof to back him up.)
- X’s “Community Notes” system for users to fact-check tweets is failing, with most accurate fact-checks never shown to the public.
- X is restricting traffic to posts with external links to them, with Musk insisting that he’s trying to discourage “lazy linking” — even though putting links in tweets has been the time-honored way to get information out.
- A dark-money political action committee that invoked the name of former Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg but ran ads trying to link Ginsburg to Trump was bankrolled by Musk.
- Musk’s mother has become a media star in China, and she regularly praises the country.
These are all things the MRC would be complaining about if Musk wasn’t a right-winger — but spouting the right (wing) things and throwing lots of money around to spread that message means that Musk warrants the full defense treatment. For instance, a Nov. 23 post by Tim Graham complained that a Committee to Protect Journalists gala featured “HBO comedian/activist John Oliver,” who ” express[ed] joy over Elon Musk stupidly blowing a huge wad of cash on the “online sewer” of Twitter.” He then went on to play classist snob: “Let’s not forget that billionaire-bashing Oliver isn’t exactly a man of the people. He and his wife Kate snagged a snazzy $9.5 million 39th floor Manhattan penthouse with ‘panoramic views of the city skyline.’ Then they ‘used a tax loophole created by Donald Trump himself back in the 1970s.'” Again, Graham said nothing about Musk’s rampant election interference.