Beware Trump's secret weapon: Elon Musk's X-Twitter

This is a guest post from FrameLab contributor Jason Sattler. Jason is LOLGOP on Twitter and pretty much any other social media platform. His writing has appeared in USA TODAY, Wired.com, the New York Daily News and Alternet.

There has never been a threat to democracy quite like Elon Musk. Now is a great time to stop helping him.

As Framelab wrote more than a year and a half ago, he's using Twitter to try to control your brain. Now, it's clear how much that control is worth to him. 

Musk's ownership of the site – which he calls “X” – has led to a 52% loss in advertising revenue and a 73% decrease in the app’s value since 2022. But he doesn’t see this as a loss. Instead, it’s an investment in his desire to create a world governed by “strict father” morality. 

The Tesla CEO emerged as the most prominent supporter of Donald Trump who isn’t on the Supreme Court (or isn't Vladimir Putin). And no one has taken Kamala Harris's exuberant rise worse than Elon. Possibly not even Trump. 

Musk’s weaponization of Twitter in the information war worsens daily, using tactics pioneered by Trump.

Musk shares Kamala deepfake

Recently, Musk broke his site’s rules by sharing a deep fake video of Harris, which got news coverage – unlike his his further descent into the racist Great Replacement theory. 

His nonstop braying of right-wing attacks on Democrats and the media has become so normalized that the press has stopped treating them as newsworthy (much like his lies about self-driving cars). 

If you believe the stats on his tweets, his posts generally reach at least 20 million users. His reengineering of the site and its algorithm means he personally shapes the experience of everyone who uses the app. That means we must functionally view Twitter as a Trump campaign website.

Unfortunately, despite its dwindling audience, Twitter remains a hub for many of the nation’s top journalists, celebrities, and influencers. Their credibility heightens Musk’s unprecedented perch in society. He’s a mogul as powerful as Rupert Murdoch with a voice louder than any cable news pundit. 

We honestly have no idea how this perverse oligarch/demagogue hybrid will affect our elections. But we know it won’t be good.

While the old Twitter shut down Trump’s account after January 6th, Musk’s version will show the opposite of restraint. The site will remain a powerful megaphone for all of Trump’s lies, as well as the Big Lie that’s sure to come if the Republican loses another election. As the app’s chief grievance monger, Musk will do everything possible to ensure that Trump squeaks back into the White House.

Getting strategic about Musk's Twitter

So, before it’s too late, we must get strategic about how we use Twitter. 

Let's be honest. For many people, Twitter is the “sunk-cost social network” for those who don’t want to learn a new platform or give up the following or news feed they may have spent more than a decade building. 

There is also a case for broadcasting messages on the site, given the influential power of its user base. But everything wrong about the site will be infinitely worse in October. 

Remember the “Twitter Files” charade? Musk used internal Twitter emails to fuel conspiracy theories about the 2020 election that even Amy Comey Barrett didn’t buy. The ridiculous subtext was that Twitter blunted the Hunter Biden laptop story that was supposed to be the GOP’s “October Surprise” so egregiously that it cost Trump the election. 

If Musk believes that nonsense, we have to expect an October Surprise every day of October, likely spread by Musk himself and fed to every user by any means he can engineer. 

So here are some simple steps everyone – especially popular campaign accounts like KamalaHQ – can take to minimize the damage Musk can do to democracy during this election:

1. Establish accounts on Blue Sky and Mastodon. Musk-free Networks like BlueSky and Mastodon are the most democratic. Democrats should help build them up. Threads, too. But Meta’s desire to avoid politics – and its algorithm, which often shows you days-old posts – makes it terrible for rapid response. 
2. Stop using Twitter for news. Do this in preparation for the tsunami of disinformation coming in October. The site cannot be trusted and will harm your brain this fall. If you must use it, stick to the “Following” tab to avoid the algorithm. Better yet, just use the site to broadcast and check your notifications. Don’t let Elon’s algorithm frame the debate!
3. Go “Twitter Last." Campaigns from Harris for President on down should clarify that they will post to Twitter only after updating other platforms. Steering the media away from Twitter helps democracy. Announcing you will make news elsewhere will send reporters and users to these other platforms, as will every announcement the media makes that says, “As the campaign noted on BlueSky…” etc. Political strategist Murshed Zaheed calls this going “Twitter Last.” A huge announcement – like naming a vice presidential nominee – would be a great time to try this strategy.