(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Musk’s Use of Social Media Could Affect the Election [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-10-19 Elon Musk has thrown his $248 billion fortune behind the effort to re-elect Donald Trump. Since endorsing Trump this July, after the assassination attempt on Trump, Musk has $75 million backing Trump through his political action committee America PAC , for canvassing, digital operations and direct mail, and recently, setting up shop in Pennsylvania. Using his personal X account, he has reached out to his nearly 202 million followers, to spread conspiracy theories, such as the debunked claim that voting machines are being used to rig the election. As the owner of the world’s most influential text-based social media platform, Musk’s usage of X to advance his politics is concerning. That, however, is just the tip of the iceberg, the America PAC has used sketchy tactics to try and gain an edge in turning out the vote. Why the America PAC Matters Elections are like start-ups and require billions of dollars to give a candidate a shot at winning on Election Day. The funds raised are used to sell the product, i.e. the candidate, spread their message through political ads, and turn people into customers, i.e. getting them to get out and vote and even better, to turn other people into voters. The more money a campaign has, the more it can do all these things, and it takes hundreds of millions of dollars to even have a chance at winning the presidency. In 2020, the most expensive election in our history, the cost of the presidential, and Senate and House elections was $14 billion . Then, President Joe Biden became the first candidate to raise over $1 billion, and Trump raised $774 million. 2024 is likely to blow past that record. However, efficiency in spending matters. Certainly, Trump beat Hillary Clinton despite being outspent 2 to 1, and he could beat Vice President Kamala Harris despite being outspent 2 to 1. The America PAC’s Dubious Use of Social Media That’s where Musk comes in: he won’t bridge the gulf between Harris and the Trump campaign, but he has enough money to have an impact in key battleground states, where both campaigns are fighting for the votes of just 800,000 swayable voters. In the days after Trump’s first assassination attempt, the America PAC paid for $900,000 in ads to run on Facebook and Instagram, with messages such as, “Never surrender!”, and “Stand with Trump”, with an image of Trump, fist in the air, staring out defiantly. This was the first salvo in Musk’s attempt to use social media to sway these 800,000 independent voters in key battleground states. Musk isn’t the only one backing the America PAC: other backers include Joe Lonsdale, a venture capitalist and Palantir co-founder, cryptocurrency investors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, and Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, of the mega venture capital firm, a16z. Concerns have been raised about how America PAC has gathered its data, with some worrying that their methods violate user privacy, transparency and election integrity. Under the pretense of helping voters register to vote, their data is harvested on forms on Facebook and Instagram, and this data is used to coordinate with the Trump campaign to target users. Under state laws, which oversee voter registration activities, there are regulations around how data is collected and used. North Carolina and Michigan were so concerned about the America PAC that they thought about investigating the PAC, but could not find sufficient evidence to move forward. Nevertheless, the states are still monitoring the America PAC. In an interview with Fast Company, Thessalia Merivaki, an associate professor at Georgetown University who studies voter access, said that even if America PAC’s tactics are legal, they are “a bit deceptive”, because they give voters the impression that they are registering to vote, which might discourage them from actually doing so. What is really happening is that their data is being harvested. If you clicked on the America PAC’s “register & vote” Google and YouTube ads in September, you would be directed to the group’s website, where you would be asked to give your email and zip code. If you live in a swing state, you would then be led to a form where you’d have to enter your name, address, and phone number. At the end of the process, you would not be led to an official voter registration portal. On Facebook and Instagram, if you clicked on their ads, a form popped up in your feed for you to enter your personal information. In two weeks of July, the America PAC spent $899,458 on Facebook and Instagram, delivering ads to voters 14.7 million screens in the key battleground states of Arizona, Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, making the group the tenth largest political advertiser on Meta’s platforms, and the second Republican political advertiser after the Trump National Committee Joint Fundraising Committee. The America PAC only spent $20,000 on its “register & vote” ads on YouTube and Google, because Google’s regulations do not allow political form ads. If you want to harvest data, you’re not going to waste time on a platform that makes that hard. 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