Republicans hate tech’s influence on politics. Unless it comes from Elon Musk

Elon Musk has not been at all subtle in his efforts to help Donald Trump win the presidency. Musk hasn’t just endorsed him or donated tens of millions of dollars to pro-Trump political action committees or appeared at Trump rallies to jump up and down with joy. Musk is also using the full power of his ownership of the social platform X to portray Kamala Harris as an existential threat to America while spreading many falsehoods.

The Republicans’ silence about Musk’s blatant politicking via his social media platform demonstrates their party’s deep hypocrisy when it comes to Big Tech’s power over politics.

A rule to push Musk’s posts to more people was apparently hard-coded into the platform’s software after Musk got upset that President Joe Biden’s posts about the Super Bowl received more views than his. Musk reportedly threatened to fire his own engineers unless they made sure his posts were super amplified. Sure enough, Musk’s posts now get tens of millions of views.

Musk has posted on X, for example, that “if Trump is NOT elected, this will be the last election” (103 million views). He has described Harris as “just a puppet” (20 million views) or “the Kamala puppet” (28 million views). He also regularly claims what he describes as “the Kamala Dem machine” or “the Dems” are out to ensure a “permanent one-party rule in America” (33 million views).

Musk also routinely makes false claims about mass electoral fraud committed to help Democrats. For example, Musk posted that Arizona is “refusing to remove noncitizens from the voter rolls” and shared a post claiming that hundreds of thousands of immigrants in the country illegally had registered to vote there — both of which prompted a correction attempt from the county recorder based in Phoenix, who is a Republican.

It’s not hard to imagine what many Republicans would be saying if a Silicon Valley CEO had come out as hard for Harris as Musk has for Trump. Years ago, Republican legislators raised concerns that tech companies were secretly putting their thumbs on the algorithmic scales in favor of the Democrats. In response, Republican lawmakers held hearings in which they claimed that tech platforms were biased against conservatives, which they suggested was antithetical to free speech.

Where are they now?

If Republican legislators were actually serious about Big Tech’s influence on politics, they’d be dragging Musk to Congress to hold him accountable for shameless partisan favoritism. Instead, they’re reaping the spoils of Musk’s influence while saying nothing.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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