NEW YORK – Elon Musk is known for promoting far-right on X, his social media platform, while portraying him himself as the champion of free speech.

He bought Twitter in April 2022 and later renamed it as X. Since then, the content restrictions have been eased, making it easier for White nationalists and others to propagate their ideas freely.

Despite a backlash from governments, Musk isn’t ready to change his stance. Some media reports suggests that he is seeking a role in the future Donald Trump government and thus backing him openly against Kamal Harris in the US presidential election.

Certainly, Musk has massive economic interests to protect – from Tesla to Starlink and SpaceX.

RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE

His political ambitions coincide with the Russian interference in the US elections, a never-ending episode which started with Trump’s decision to jump into political arena, as he contested the 2016 presidential election successfully.

Earlier this week, the US Justice Department in New York filed money-laundering charges against two employees of Russian state media network RT. They are facing the charges related to influencing the 2024 presidential election.

They are accused of using used shell companies and fake personas to pay $10 million to an unnamed Tennessee company to produce online videos aimed at amplifying political divisions in the United States.

Although the company is not named in the indictment, details provided in court filings match up with Tenet Media, a Nashville-based company that has posted nearly 2,000 videos to YouTube in less than a year.

Meanwhile, this story reminds us of what we are currently experiencing in Pakistan, as social media employed to create divisions in the country by attacking the national institutions.

YOUTUBE SHUTS DOWN CHANNELS

Just a day after the indictment, YouTube announced terminating the Tenet Media channel and four channels operated by Tenet owner Lauren Chen.

THE MUSK CONNECTION

Unlike YouTube, there are no chances of X going after such elements, as Musk has not only been promoting similar ideas but also interacting with them on the social media platform.

Also read: Freedom of Inciting Violence: Billionaires Shaping The World

Tenet Media is linked to far-right influencers Tim Pool, Dave Rubin, and Benny Johnson, who regularly engage with Musk on X.

These influencers have over six million followers. Despite their involvement with Tenet, none of them have been accused of wrongdoing, and they claim they were unaware of the company’s Russian funding.

The indictment detailed that one influencer working with Tenet earned $400,000 monthly and a $100,000 bonus to create four weekly videos.

But Musk isn’t restricting his “activism” to just the United States, as he predicted civil war in the UK during the recent anti-immigrant riots. His comments drew reaction from the British government, forcing him to delete the said post. However, he still continues to back the far-right ideals across the world.

Brazil is another example where the country’s top court banned X after Musk refused to comply with the orders to block the accounts responsible for hate speech.