In September, there were signs that Elon Musk's attempts to elect Donald Trump — on and off the network formerly known as Twitter — were faltering.
Now, after a weekend in which Musk immortalized the hashtag #DorkMAGA at a Trump rally, appropriated the @America account from its owner, and used it to literally offer money to swing state voters, those attempts have entered uncharted territory.
How did we get here? Let's recap.
On September 23, Musk was successfully fact-checked, a.k.a. Community Noted, on an X post relating to U.S. politics, for the first time in 2024. Musk spread a false rumor that a bomb had been found at a Trump rally. A New York Times examination of Musk's 171 posts that week found that nearly a third of them were "false, misleading or lacked vital context." The fact that only one of them was marked as such gives you a sense of just how much Musk's supporters on the service are downvoting Community Notes on his posts.
Even for the stans, it seems, a fake bomb threat was beyond the pale.
Meanwhile IRL, Musk's pro-Trump America PAC was stumbling. In two swing states that will decide the 2024 election, Arizona and Nevada, where voter turnout is crucial, Musk fired its entire turnout operation. Given that America PAC is pretty much the only ground game the Trump campaign has, this was bad news for the GOP candidate that Musk officially endorsed back in July. As of last week, with early voting already underway in some states, America PAC was still hiring.
Then on Friday, Musk got another very public online fact-check. Not a Community Note this time, but a response from Transport Secretary Pete Buttigieg to Musk sharing a screenshot of an anonymous text making wild claims about the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
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"Support flights are underway, much appreciated," Musk replied after talking to Buttigieg — kind of claiming credit for solving a nonexistent problem, but also essentially walking back his fake claim about FEMA blocking Musk's satellite internet company from aiding in hurricane relief.
Could the weekend get any more embarrassing for him?
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At a weekend rally for Trump in Pennsylvania, Musk appeared in a black "Make America Great Again" cap and declared himself "dark MAGA."
According to the Global Network for Extremism and Technology, the #DarkMAGA hashtag goes back to 2022, and represents a desire to go down a harsh path of retribution against MAGA critics. Dark MAGA posts frequently include Nazi and QAnon imagery.
If Musk's intent was to evoke a more terrifying image, he succeeded in part — though not in the way he might have hoped. When Musk shook Trump's hand, a strange look crossed his face — and one photograph launched a thousand memes.
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But even that meme could not withstand the firepower of Musk's midriff-baring ... well, let's just call it a rocket launch.
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Put the two together, and it's no surprise that a new hashtag blossomed: #DorkMAGA.
Those images contrasted with Musk's new Twitter/X profile photo. His red-armored Halloween costume, used on and off since October 2022, was replaced after the Trump rally Saturday by a more flattering (and more edited) picture of Musk in the Dark MAGA cap against an American flag. (Even some of Musk's blue-check buying supporters were quick to note they would lose their verification badge if they were to change their profile photo.)
Clearly, this was a long way from the claim Musk made back in April 2022, when he was preparing to buy Twitter, that the service should be "politically neutral" and upset "the far left and the far right equally."
And in case anyone was confused by the subtlety of the black-on-black MAGA cap, Musk also made his political message clear in his new bio: "Read @America to understand why I'm supporting Trump for president."
This was the first indication that Musk had seized the @America account from its original owner, and handed it over to his America PAC. As my Mashable colleague Matt Binder revealed, the original account owner — someone who happened to call Musk "anti-American" in 2020 — was given the rather less memorable handle of @America123_12.
Musk is within his rights to seize any account, of course — it's his service, he overpaid for it. He has done so once before, appropriating the "X" handle from a photographer. But at least that was the new name of his company. Seizing the name of a country, for entirely political purposes ... well, let's say it may not fully convey the "free speech" concept Musk believes himself to be defending.
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But hey, what's more American than promising free money for election-related purposes? That's what Musk proceeded to do with the America account, posting a bounty of $47 for any user who got a user in a swing state to sign the PAC's petition (and of course, harvesting their contact data in the process).
Given that America PAC is having trouble hiring, posting the bounty makes sense. Whether it counts as a violation of federal election law, in particular 18 U.S. Code § 597, is up to the Federal Election Commission, which has not yet weighed in. Some seasoned political observers were in no doubt, however.
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And as if that weren't enough, Musk's mother, Maye, weighed in on another one of the X owner's posts — jokingly suggesting election fraud.
"It's not illegal," Mother Musk claimed of the suggestion that her son's supporters register 10 times and vote 10 times at different polling stations.
"This is, in fact, illegal," read a Community Note that was appended on Maye Musk's Saturday tweet. The note appeared to have been removed on Sunday, but was restored on Monday.
For Musk fans, evidently, supporting mom's right to suggest this kind of electoral fraud — something that Republican officials have already been prosecuted for doing — was a step too far.
