Thank you, Elon Musk
By Dr. Harold A. Black
blackh@knoxfocus.com
haroldblackphd.com
In the presidential election of 2020, aligned against Trump were both the mainstream media and all the social media giants like Twitter, Facebook and Google. All three of these social media giants were in the hands of CEOs who hated Trump. Jack Dorsey ran Twitter, Zuckerberg was at Facebook and Google was run by Sundar Pichai. All suppressed stories about Hunter’s laptop and refused to publish factual stories that they labeled “misinformation.” The “misinformation” was not fabricated and they knew it.
Twitter, Facebook, Spotchat, Twitch, Shopify and Instagram all suspended Trump’s accounts, putting him into digital exile. Zuckerberg gave millions to Democrats and Google buried searches it did not like. Several hundred thousand voters said afterwards that if they had known about Hunter’s laptop and its link to Joe Biden, they would not have voted for him. Postelection analysis showed that if Twitter, Facebook and Google had been forthcoming, Trump would have won. Only two years later, did all the laptop deniers finally admit that the story was legitimate after contending it was part of a Russian hoax to get Donald Trump reelected.
This election was different. Zuckerberg remains a dedicated Democrat and would do whatever was necessary to reelect Biden, flip the House and keep the Senate in Democrat hands. Google still buries searches it does not like. I googled “Liz Cheney’s criticisms of Harris” and the first several pages were all links to Cheney’s appearances with Harris on the campaign trail and Cheney’s endorsement of Harris. There was one lonely link to an article of Cheney’s previous lambasting of Harris and ridiculing her positions buried deep in the search. However, Elon Musk had bought Twitter. Not only did he change its name to “X” (although I guess the postings are still called tweets), he became a stalwart Trump supporter and removed Twitter from the evil empire set on demonizing Trump.
Did that have an impact on the election? Millions report that social media (including TikTok) is their primary source of news – a fact that I find stunning. So in that world, the flow of information, misinformation or outright censorship is outsized. Musk turned Twitter 180 degrees. From the outset, he urged to put in place a Republican Congress to counter Joe Biden’s presidency saying, “Shared power curbs the worst excesses of both parties, therefore I recommend voting for a Republican Congress, given that the Presidency is Democratic.” I wonder if he still feels that way now with Trump as president-elect, a Republican Senate and likely a Republican House.
The leftist media is howling. Musk had first said that Twitter should be neutral politically. Obviously, that no longer holds as he became one of Trump’s leading cheerleaders, contributing over $75 million to his campaign and, as NPR put it, “using X to cheerlead for Trump, smear Vice President Kamala Harris, and amplify rumors and conspiracy theories to his 202 million followers.” Yet 202 million is paltry compared to the billions who use Google daily and Facebook’s over 3 billion subscribers. But as seen over and over again, even influencing several thousand voters can make a difference, leaving one to wonder whether if Twitter were still led by Dorsey, would Harris rather than Trump be president elect.
Some have questioned Musk aligning himself with Trump given Trump’s dislike of the Green New Deal and the EV mandates. Musk, however, has said that he opposes the banning of internal combustion engines and the mandates. Some think that he joined the Trump camp because he was furious when he was not invited to the White House to a ceremony where Biden praised the EV efforts of Ford and GM and neglected Tesla altogether. Biden’s actions were because Tesla is nonunion and Biden didn’t dare offend the United Automobile Workers. So thank you, Joe. If you had brought Musk into the fold, he would have likely stayed on the sidelines and Trump might not be president-elect.
