Musk encourages people to post about election fraud to support conspiracy theories

With just two weeks until Election Day, billionaire Trump supporter Elon Musk is encouraging people to post on his social media platform X about anything they think could be voter fraud.

“Be very loud if you have concerns,” Musk said at a rally in Pittsburgh on Sunday while answering an audience question about voting machines. “The brighter the light we shine on voting issues, the less likely fraud is to occur.”

A day later, Musk’s pro-Trump political action committee America PAC launched a “community.” [they] see when voting in the 2024 election.”

Social media posts like the ones Musk encourages people to make have become a major source of conspiracy theories in recent election cycles.

“Elon Musk’s escalation of voter fraud conspiracies is highly irresponsible and will likely increase distrust in our democratic infrastructure,” Nina Jankowicz, co-founder of the American Sunlight Project, told TPM.

“I have studied, worked and participated in election observation missions in countries where electoral fraud is very real. It takes generations to restore trust in the system,” Jankowicz said. Musk, she added, is “actively trying to undermine American democracy for years to come.”

Unmoderated posts on of what transpired in 2020, as Trump and his supporters sought every opportunity to challenge his defeat.

“If Trump believes he is losing on election night, he is likely to spread large amounts of disinformation about the existence of fraud,” David Becker, executive director of the Center of Election Innovation and Research, told CBS.

“I think we can say with some certainty that Elon Musk will take these comments and distribute them to hundreds of millions of people to consume immediately while election officials are busy counting ballots,” he said.

Last week, Musk also spread debunked voter fraud conspiracy theories that harked back to Trump’s Big Lie of 2020 and suggested that Dominion Voting Systems was part of an election fraud conspiracy.

“If you have mail-in ballots and no proof of citizenship, it’s almost impossible to prove fraud,” Musk said. “Statistically speaking, some very strange things happen that are statistically incredibly unlikely. There’s always this question of, let’s say, the Dominion voting machines. It is strange, in my opinion, that they were used in Philadelphia and Maricopa County [in Arizona] but not in many other places. Doesn’t that seem like a damn coincidence?”

“The last thing I would do is trust a computer program,” the tech billionaire added.

In response, a Dominion spokesperson dismissed the billionaire’s baseless claims with a fresh dose of debunking.

“Fact: Dominion does not serve Philadelphia County,” the Dominion spokesman said. “Fact: Dominion’s voting systems are already based on voter-verified ballots. Fact: Hand counts and audits of such ballots have repeatedly proven that Dominion machines produce accurate results. These are not questions of opinion. These are verifiable facts.”

The election hardware company last year reached a $787.5 million settlement with Fox News in a defamation lawsuit the company filed over similarly debunked claims.

Over the last year, Musk has posted several election fraud-related conspiracy theories on his feed, including one that suggests Democrats are bringing immigrants to the U.S. to get more votes.

“The danger right now is that there are people who are trying to uncover every kind of glitch and use it to reinforce narratives that they’re trying to sell that the elections are not trustworthy,” said Lawrence Norden, the executive Director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Elections and Government Program, Politico said.