Superheroes aren’t real, but supervillains are. Many people are aware that social media doubles as a news source in this generation, but Elon Musk has harnessed this power in a way never seen before. This is how a South African billionaire manipulated the American people into voting for Donald Trump. 

One of Musk’s biggest concerns when considering who to vote for is the southern border and illegal immigration. He believes in Trump’s deportation plans and his views surrounding immigration. Yet, he worked in America illegally for a decade and then lied about it. In 1995, Musk arrived at Stanford University, yet didn’t enroll in any classes. From a legal standpoint, there is no basis for Musk to keep his J-1 visa (citizenship that is used for nonimmigrant students who are pursuing education in the U.S.). Musk claimed that he got the visa changed to an H-1B visa (a visa used for specialized occupations). 

Once again, that is not applicable to Musk’s immigration path. In a video published by Milken Industry’s YouTube page, Musk’s younger brother confirms the suspicion of illegal immigration, “When they did fund us,” Kimbal Musk recalled, “they realized that we were illegal immigrants.” 

Fast forward 9 years, and we arrive on April 14, 2022. Elon offered 44 billion dollars to purchase what was formerly known as Twitter. Musk explains that Twitter must be a no-man’s-land when it comes to political ideologies, “For Twitter to deserve public trust, it must be politically neutral, which effectively means upsetting the far right and the far left equally.” 6 months later, on October 27, 2022, the deal went through, making Musk the owner of Twitter. In the following days, Musk lays off top execs and half of staff. Musk created a content moderation council to enforce the regulation of spam and fraud.

The subsequent tweets from Musk’s Twitter promoted heavily conservative conspiracy theories. Musk reposted far-right misinformation about a brutal attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband, stating a baseless conspiracy that suggests homosexual adultery and intoxication. Musk tweets, “There is a possibility there might be more to this story than meets the eye”, citing a source known for baseless theories and propaganda, The Santa Monica Observer.

On November 5, 2022,  Twitter started charging people for a blue check mark, meaning there is no more background verification for accounts that want to become “official”. 

13 days later, Twitter started to unblock and promote far-right misogynistic accounts such as the infamous influencer, Andrew Tate. After being banned in 2017 for saying women should take some accountability for rape, he quoteed in one of his tweets, “I have decided to fly to the failed state of California, walk into Twitter HQ, and tell @elonmusk that he’s a legend. On my way.” 

December 5, 2022, Tate and his brother are arrested on suspicion of human trafficking, rape, and organized crime in Romania. 

Musk’s Trust and Safety Council is dissolved only three short days after Tate’s arrest, and three members resigned and stated “Contrary to claims by Elon Musk, the safety and wellbeing of Twitter’s users are on the decline.” Musk counter-tweets, “It is a crime that they refused to take action on child exploitation for years!”

It seems quiet on social media, until one of the most anticipated days in American sports, the Super Bowl. Both President Joe Biden and Musk tweet in regards to the Chiefs and Eagles matchup. President Biden’s comment gets over 21 million more views than Musk’s, leading Musk to leave the big game early. He has a meeting with Twitter marketing to promote his tweets on the platform by a factor of 1000 so that his tweets would be shown to more people than the President of the United States. 

As the year went on, Musk got backlash from organizations that claimed that X had failed to protect users from sensitive information and detrimental content. The Center for Countering Digital Hate claimed that Musk had failed to keep the platform free of hate, to which Musk responded with a lawsuit in July of 2023. 

That same month, “@ElonJet” is deactivated on Twitter along with 25 other accounts that share public information about his private transportation and were created on Threads. Musk threatens to sue for “systematic, willful, and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property.”

August 24, 2023, Former President Donald Trump’s social media ban is lifted for the first time since the worst attack on American democracy, January 6. Trump posts his mugshot with the words “Election interference. Never surrender” underneath. Musk reposts the shot with the simple, yet monumental words, “Next level,” endorsing the former president. 

Four days later, X lifted the former ban on political advertisements, allowing Musk to spread his support for the far right and Donald Trump. After this, A racist conspiracy theorist “Fact Checker Eric” posts a theory about Jewish people importing immigrants to fix an election, “Okay. Jewish communities have been pushing the exact dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them…” The post receives 21.1 thousand upvotes. 

Musk replies to the racist and insensitive post, “You have said the actual truth.”

Because of this and other instances where Musk was criticized for the normalized hate on the platform, X lost major advertisers. Musk tells them “Go [expletive] Yourself.” Musk continues to spread propaganda and misinformation about the Democratic party, posting “The Dem Party’s goal is to import voters.”

In March of 2024, Musk lost the lawsuit for a loss of “tens of millions of dollars” in advertising revenue after the Center for Countering Digital hate claimed online hate and misinformation skyrocketed after Musk purchased Twitter. “This case is about punishing the Defendants for their speech.”

As the presidential election started to creep closer, Musk’s involvement became more than concerning. He created America PAC, a Political Action Committee whose goal is to mobilize 1,000,000 voters in favor of former president Trump. Later in the campaign, Musk calls Trump on behalf of JD Vance and urges him to pick Vance as his running mate. Vance then calls abortion “murder” and insults women who do not have children calling them “childless cat ladies”. The very next day, Vance is named Trump’s running mate. Here’s the legal trouble with that; owners of super PACs cannot coordinate with the candidates they support. 

If that wasn’t alarming enough, on September 6th, Trump promised that Musk will be appointed head of government efficiency if he is elected. This title gives Musk the power to regulate the regulators who oversee his companies. 

On September 10, 2024, the majority of America cringed and shook their heads as the presidential debate was aired. A now infamous claim, Musk and former president Trump spread false information about Haitians in Springfield, Ohio eating their pets.  The claims led to bomb threats directed towards the town. After the debate, Musk shared false claims of the Democratic nominee Kamala Harris cheating and shared AI pictures of Trump cuddling animals. 

6 days post-debate, Musk suggests a highly disturbing and anti-American idea regarding the various attempts on politicians’ lives this election. Musk posts, “No one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala.” Consequently, The White House responded with a post of their own “Violence should only be condemned, never encouraged or joked about. This rhetoric is irresponsible.” 

Musk’s involvement in the election only grows as he posts, “Unless Trump wins and we get rid of the mountain of smothering regulations (that have nothing to do with safety!), humanity will never reach Mars.” This suggests that Musk would get rid of regulators that control his corporations. 

Musk held multiple pro-Trump town halls and joined Trump on stage in Pennsylvania for the months leading up to the election. He recruited lieutenants from his companies to join him in supporting the Trump campaign, as he donated up to 76 million dollars to the campaign. 

In mid-October, it is revealed that a Musk-funded foundation is spreading propaganda about Kamala Harris to Muslim voters in Michigan, and Jewish voters in Pennsylvania, changing the rhetoric depending on the audience.

On October 19, it was revealed that the Building America’s Future Pact (a Musk-funded foundation) impersonated the Harris campaign, creating a fake website with fake policies and then sending text messages to voters directing them to the website. 

To continue advocating for Trump, Musk offered Pennsylvania voters 100 dollars if they signed a petition saying they’d vote for Trump. He also started a giveaway contest that gave away 1,000,000 dollars a day to any random voter who said they’d vote for the former president. 

And if you thought it wouldn’t get sketchier, The Washington Post releases that Musk has been in regular contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin. It was also determined that Musk had posted 3,000 times spreading misinformation, making him the second largest contributor, the first being Donald Trump. 

Now, Donald Trump has been elected as the 47th president of the United States. In the following weeks, the president-elect fulfilled his promise to Elon and created DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) and named Musk as a co-runner of the department. 

Elon Musk has successfully manipulated the American people’s minds and has become the real-life personification of a comic book supervillain. But America, wake up. There is no Superman coming to save us. Not because Krypton doesn’t exist or no billionaire is using his fear of bats to fight crime, but because superheroes are the figurative embodiment of what a nation can become. Whether it’s super strength or super speed, there is no ability that the American people lack when united. Barack Obama said it best, “There is not a liberal America or a conservative America, there is the United States of America”. The only way to overcome such outward hatred displayed by Elon Musk is for “We the People” to become united once again.