Two weeks after making a stunning $44 billion bid to buy Twitter in April 20227xm, Elon Musk began to lay out a vision for his ownership of the social network. The company’s management had become biased in favor of left-wing values, Mr. Musk argued, and he would stamp out political partisanship.
“For Twitter to deserve public trust, it must be politically neutral,” tweeted Mr. Musk, the world’s richest man.
More than two years later, the network, now known as X, is anything but. Ahead of next week’s presidential election, the platform’s algorithmically curated feeds and trending topics have become overtly political, echoing the biases of Mr. Musk, the platform’s most followed account and one of former President Donald J. Trump’s most notable supporters. Mr. Musk’s posts are a stream of grievances, conspiracy theories and partisan misinformation.
The about-face is one of many Mr. Musk has undertaken in recent years as he has increasingly embraced Mr. Trump and his allies.
He’s met with fellow billionaires and businessmen to strategize on how to elect Mr. Trump, despite criticizing similar elite gatherings last year as akin to “an unelected world government.” He has poured nearly $120 million into a fierce effort to support Mr. Trump, after criticizing other social media billionaires for getting involved in elections. And his platform has suppressed news stories from outlets he sees as biased against Mr. Trump, despite his stated commitment to free speech.
In the business world, Mr. Musk is prone to hyperbole and product predictions that sometimes fall short. But his public political turnaround — which began as he made his offer to buy Twitter — has revealed something else: a willingness to completely reverse himself on publicly expressed beliefs.
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