Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk has backed Republicans ahead of Tuesday’s U.S. midterm elections, saying they can use congressional control to act as a balance against US Democrats. President Joe Biden.
The richest person in the world, Musk has faced criticism from some groups who believe his absolutist stance on free speech will increase misinformation on Twitter. Some advertisers have withdrawn spending from the platform, with Musk blaming critics concerned about content moderation.
His tweet to more than 110 million followers on Monday represented the first time the head of a major social media platform had explicitly endorsed a US political party.
Musk, also the CEO of Tesla (TSLA.O), has criticized the Biden administration and Democrats for their proposals to tax billionaires and give more tax breaks to electric vehicles made by unions. Tesla has no unions in its US factories.
He directed his Twitter message to what he called “independently-minded voters,” writing, “Shared power curbs the worst excesses of both parties, so I recommend voting for a Republican Congress as the presidency is a Democrat.”
Republicans are favorites to win a majority in the House of Representatives in Tuesday’s election, with the Senate rated a hit by nonpartisan election analysts. They could use a majority in either chamber to disrupt Biden’s legislature and launch potentially politically damaging investigations into the government and Biden’s family.
Kyle Kondik of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics said Musk’s words are unlikely to influence the election outcome.
“It’s hard to expect any kind of celebrity ‘endorsement’, as it basically is, to have much or no effect on voter behavior,” Kondik said.
The White House declined to comment on Musk’s tweet.
Musk, who often comments on US politics, has previously said he would vote Republican but supports moderates in both major political parties.
He said he was leaning toward supporting Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis for the 2024 presidency and that former President Donald Trump, who sources said is likely to launch another White House run in the coming days, was too old to serve as a presidential candidate. president again.
New line for social media executives
Musk is not alone among social media executives in taking open political positions.
Sheryl Sandberg, former COO of Meta Platforms Inc (META.O), which owns Facebook, for example, donated heavily to progressive candidates and endorsed Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Like other executives, however, Sandberg did not explicitly tell his followers how to vote and struggled to keep a distance between his personal leanings and his management of the company’s platforms.
Former Twitter Chief Executive Jack Dorsey expressed a sense of alienation from both Republican and Democratic politics, while Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg and his wife donated to two nonprofits that distributed donations to state governments and locations to help them hold elections.
Musk bought Twitter last month. In one of its first acts, the company laid off half of its employees and signaled a drop in ad revenue. But the company’s head of security and integrity said the platform’s content moderation features remained in place.
In a statement to Reuters, Jessica Gonzalez, co-CEO of the Free Press, an advocacy group for media issues in democracy, said that Musk’s comment showed he “is not proving himself a balanced CEO that advertisers can trust.” .
Last year, Tesla, which counts California as its biggest US market, moved its headquarters from California to the more conservative state of Texas. Musk also moved his personal residence from California to Texas, where there is no state income tax.
In April, Musk said on Twitter that he believes that in order for the platform to “earn the public’s trust, it must be politically neutral, which effectively means upsetting the far right and far left alike.”
Federal authorities are investigating Musk for his conduct in the acquisition of Twitter, the company said in a court filing last month. The US Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Trade Commission did not comment on any potential investigations. see More information
(Edited by Scott Malone and Howard Goller of Reuters)
Source: CNN Brasil
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