Elon Musk'x X and his own behavior in the social media platform have been described as a "huge problem" by election officials who are constantly trying to put out misinformation campaigns shared by the billionaire.
Earlier this week, Musk shared a new conspiracy theory, claiming there was mass election fraud in Michigan going on because the state has more registered voters than eligible voting-age adults. Election officials have since debunked Musk's fraud claim, explaining that federal law requires the state to keep voters on voter rolls until they miss two elections.
Michigan County Clerk Barb Bynum told NBC News she has to consistently fact-check Musk, but doing so is highly ineffective. Musk's Michigan conspiracy theory received more than 32 million views, while Bynum's rebuttal garnered around 63,000 views.
"My microphone is significantly smaller," she said. Bynum has around 25,000-follower accounts. Musk has more than 200 million.
Similarly, in Pennsylvania, election officials described to CNN their failed attempts to fact-check Musk. "Elon Musk is a huge problem," one official said, adding that the strategy at this point is more about "creating a paper trail" that various claims have been debunked should they appear in any post-election legal challenges as they did in 2020.
Musk's posts highlighting election misinformation have been viewed over 200 times more than fact-checking posts published on X by government officials or accounts, NBC News reported.
Earlier this month, Musk also shared an interview in which he accused President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris of bringing thousands of illegal immigrants into the country. Musk claimed Biden and Harris are sending them to swing states, and expediting their citizenships so that they can vote for them. Said post has received more than 100 million views and continues to be shared on X.
"The voting margin in the swing states is often less than 20 thousand votes. That means if the 'Democratic' Party succeeds, there will be no more swing states!! Moreover, the Biden/Harris administration has been flying 'asylum seekers', who are fast-tracked to citizenship, directly into swing states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin and Arizona," Musk said in the publication. "It is a surefire way to win every election. America then becomes a one-party state and Democracy is over." He has repeatedly made the claims throughout the past weeks.
Legal experts have since debunked the claim, showing official data and explaining the asylum process, which requires immigrants to go through lengthy applications that take around a decade to complete.
While Musk insists that X is a reliable tool of information, citing its crowd-sourced fact-checking feature called Community Notes, recent research by the Center of Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) found that the feature is not countering false claims about the U.S. election. Of the 283 misleading X posts that CCDH analyzed, 209 did not show accurate notes to all X users.
"The 209 misleading posts in our sample that did not display available Community Notes to all users have amassed 2.2 billion views," CCDH said.
As Election Day approaches, Musk's tactics to persuade swing state voters to vote for former President Donald Trump have become increasingly questionable. Recently, the billionaire's public action committee launched a $1 million-a-day voter lottery. While the legality behind the giveaway has been challenged with a lawsuit, legal experts say it is highly unlikely that authorities will be able to halt it prior to Nov. 5. The lottery has mostly been advertised via X.
Social media platforms, including X, have been under scrutiny for years over the spread of misinformation, including false claims about elections, which have recently resulted in attacks directed at election officials.
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