Elon Musk has seen engagement on his X account significantly increase since he waded into the presidential election and endorsed Donald Trump, new research claims.
The billionaire saw view counts on his posts increase by 138 percent, retweets by 238 percent, and likes by 186 percent, academics Timothy Graham and Mark Andrejevic claim in their research, which was published by The Conversation.
This compares with other prominent political accounts on X, which saw increases of 57 percent in view counts, 152 percent in retweets and 130 percent in likes.
The researchers said they compared Musk’s engagement metrics with a set of other prominent political accounts from the period of January 1 2024 to 25 October 2024.
Other accounts they used as a comparison included Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump Jr. They also examined prominent Democrats’ accounts, including Kamala Harris, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders.
Their research found that while engagement went up for all accounts after July, Musk enjoyed a “particularly large boost.”
Musk endorsed Trump in the days after the first assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13. Since then, he has become an influential part of the MAGA movement.
“Shortly after Musk endorsed Trump’s presidential campaign, there was a statistically anomalous boost in engagement with his X account,” the researchers said.
“Suddenly, his posts were getting much higher views, retweets and likes in comparison to other prominent political accounts on the platform. This raises suspicions as to whether Musk has tweaked the platform’s algorithm to increase the reach of his posts in advance of the US presidential election.”
The SpaceX owner has more than 200 million followers on the social media platform.
X did not respond to a request for comment from The Conversation.
The researchers acknowledged that it is “impossible to know for sure whether changes to its curation system are boosting its owner’s posts” due to the platform’s limited access when it comes to research.
Tesla and X CEO Musk, the world’s richest man, has become a key player in Trump’s camp this election.
Not only has he spoken at two of Trump’s rallies — calling himself “dark, gothic MAGA” at a rally in New York City — but the former president has said he’d let him lead the charge on gutting the federal government if he’s elected.
Musk gave nearly $75 million to a pro-Trump super PAC — America PAC — that he helped form in the summer, CNN reports.
Federal filings show that Musk has given at least $132 million to help Trump and conservatives in Congressional races this year.
He has become one of the most prolific donors of the 2024 election cycle.
