In July 2019, Donald Trump and his White House team held an odd, official event, which was labeled a “Social Media Summit.” For all intents and purposes, “summit” vastly overstated matters: The then-president hung out with a group of right-wing media gadflies, all of whom whined for hours about a made-up conspiracy that, they believed, prevented their social-media content from becoming even more popular.
A Washington Post analysis described it as a gathering in which Trump “invited some buds over to complain about how Twitter is mean to them.”
As we discussed soon after, the Republican and his allies presented no evidence to substantiate their theories, but he nevertheless complained incessantly about tech CEOs and their “terrible bias“ against those on the right. At the same event, a variety of GOP lawmakers — Sens. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Josh Hawley of Missouri, among others — talked up assorted bills and task forces that would uncover the conspiracy and require political “neutrality” from the tech giants.
Not surprisingly, nothing ever came of such efforts, largely because the entire idea of the tech industry trying to undermine conservatives was ridiculous.
Five years later, however, if Republicans are still looking for powerful tech executives displaying a partisan “bias,” I have some news they’ll be eager to see. The New York Times reported:
Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has waded into one of the thorniest issues facing U.S. politics: deepfake videos. On Friday night, Mr. Musk, the billionaire owner of the social media platform X, reposted an edited campaign video for Vice President Kamala Harris that appears to have been digitally manipulated to change the spot’s voice-over in a deceptive manner.
The video — which Musk promoted, but does not appear to have created — took an actual Harris ad, removed images that were critical of Donald Trump and Sen. JD Vance, and mimicked the Democratic vice president’s voice, making it seem as if Harris said things she neither said nor believes.
The Times report added that the manipulated video did not contain any disclaimers; Musk did not disclose it as some kind of parody; and the video “would seem to run afoul of X’s policies, which prohibit sharing ‘synthetic, manipulated or out-of-context media that may deceive or confuse people and lead to harm.’”
A day later, Musk, using the platform he now owns, described the likely Democratic presidential nominee as “an extinctionist,” adding that the effects of Harris’ political philosophy would lead to “a de facto holocaust for all of humanity!”
What’s more, the Times reported a couple of weeks ago that Musk was “likely” to offer “significant” support for a new pro-Trump super PAC created by Musk’s closest friends. The Wall Street Journal had a related report, noting that the conspiratorial billionaire is prepared to spend “around $45 million a month” in the hopes of putting the Republican back in power. Musk later denied the accuracy of the reporting, though Trump personally suggested that Musk is, in fact, investing $45 million a month in support of his candidacy. And did I mention that Trump recently told an audience that he intends to “make life good” for Musk and people like him in a prospective second term? Because the Republican said exactly that nine days ago. The Trump White House’s “Social Media Summit” might’ve been more compelling if it had this kind of material to work with.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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