“Zombie apocalypse”, “coup d’état”… Donald Trump has, once again, rolled out untruths and outrageous remarks this week. But it was not during a meeting or a television interview: the former president of the United States was invited, on Monday, August 12, by Elon Musk, to a live conversation on X (ex-Twitter).
Since its acquisition by the entrepreneur in 2022, the social network has changed profoundly. While the content of Twitter was already criticized before this acquisition, its rules prohibited the most extreme statements. By firing almost all moderators, reinstating banned users – including Donald Trump – and making certification badges chargeable, the billionaire has made the social network a sounding board for conspiracy theories. Analysis with Iris Boyer, director of the Forum on Information and Democracy observatory and researcher specializing in online extremism.
L’Express: Should we be surprised by Elon Musk’s interview with Donald Trump? And the changes he has made to the X platform?
Iris Boyer: This exchange is not really surprising, it comes in the wake of Elon Musk’s support for the former President of the United States since the assassination attempt on him. There is a clear closeness between the multi-billionaire, former libertarian now conservative, on a crusade against what he calls the “woke virus”, and Donald Trump. Elon Musk has also become closer to many conservative political figures recently, such as Giorgia Meloni, Benyamin Netanyahu, Narendra Modi and Javier Milei.
What may be surprising is the format and the bias of offering such a megaphone to one of the two candidates for the presidential election of one of the largest democracies in the world. There are no more safeguards. The two men mutually amplify their influence, in an exercise of ideological self-legitimation disguised as a political interview.
This conversation was not a contradictory debate. It was more like an echo chamber, where the two protagonists mutually convince each other of the validity of their obsessions: illegal immigration, World War III, opposition to Europe… Elon Musk awkwardly, and with technical problems, takes on the role of an opinion channel columnist. Donald Trump had been sanctioned and banned by the Twitter platform for his role in the Capitol riots, at the time of the proclamation of the results of the last election. He was reinstated by Elon Musk after his purchase of the platform. The broadcast of this interview is one more step in this process of “reinstatement”.
What is Elon Musk’s goal with this interview with Donald Trump?
It’s hard to say with certainty what Elon Musk’s goal is. Perhaps we don’t have to look too far. He has made his support for Donald Trump official. And he regularly talks about his desire to destroy “the woke virus.” So he clearly opposes the progressive ideas of the Democratic clan and he is more aware than anyone of the potential for amplification of his platform. It’s not very subtle, but this operation allows him to materialize his support.
Elon Musk probably also wants to assert his free will in the face of current regulations that aim to put an end to the laxity of online content governance policies and to make social networks responsible – such as the European Digital Services Act (DSA). To demonstrate that public authorities can do nothing in the face of the overwhelming power of the technology sector. But this strategy is dangerous, given its sources of income, far from the political arena.
By occupying the media space in this way, Musk is seeking to put Trump back at the center of public debate. In recent months, when the former president was talked about, it was more in terms of his trials and scandals. This has not been the case since the start of the campaign, and even less so since the assassination attempt. Elon Musk is participating in the normalization of Trump. He has also said that he wants to do an interview between two “ordinary gentlemen.”
Could this sequence have an impact on the vote? Or were they only talking to the convinced?
Rather to the convinced, but by relaying it on X, we ensure that it will be taken up by the media, and therefore amplified. We are no longer in a political meeting, nor in a niche between radicals. The ideology infuses into a much more mainstream – which does not mean that the unconvinced are influenced. On the contrary, this conversation can act as a polarizing machine. The unconvinced react, comment, rebel. Which reinforces and radicalizes the position of the convinced, while spreading the message even more widely.
Has X become a disinformation platform, and Elon Musk the world’s most powerful disinformer?
In its previous incarnation, Twitter had more lax moderation policies than others, and fewer staff to enforce them, but there was a real debate. The platform was the home base of journalists and experts – therefore the place where content was questioned and verified. There was a lot of freedom, but with a certain idea of the integrity of information, which consisted of thinking that users were trusted third parties capable of verifying content themselves and enriching it.
Since the acquisition by Elon Musk, we are almost in an inverse dynamic. There is still a great deal of freedom but the fake newslike outrageous posts, are highlighted and proliferate. The social network is regularly accused by disinformation research organizations of contributing to its widespread dissemination. The company has even taken several of them to court.
Is the situation likely to get worse?
We can always continue to escalate. The example of the riots, amplified and, in part, provoked by online disinformation, in the United Kingdom has shown this again. Public authorities and the population are increasingly aware of these phenomena of radicalization and acting out, but the mechanisms are still at work.
Disinformation or manipulation tactics online are also becoming increasingly difficult to identify with the emergence of new tools that exploit artificial intelligence. Other aggravating factors are added, such as difficulties in accessing data, threats against researchers and journalists, or even the backpedaling of certain platforms on content policies. Fortunately, there are also positive advances, in particular regulatory efforts in favor of more transparency and better application of laws by platforms – such as the DSA, which inspires foreign countries.
What is the future of X?
We can imagine that this network will continue, in the short term, to function as a polarizing machine: an ecosystem of online opinions with fewer and fewer contradictory debates, where senseless content rubs shoulders with credible content and dominates it because it is not moderated and because it is highlighted by the reactions provoked on both sides of the ideological spectrum.
There is also another scenario: one where opinion leaders, journalists and experts opposed to disinformation – already more observers than actors – distance themselves from it completely, as a form of protest. X would then become a more alternative platform, less mainstream. Competition exists, through Mastodon and Bluesky. But for the moment, these two networks are struggling to take off and match X, because their roadmap is not clear.
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