Musk's Political Posts
Musk's own political posts drew more views than all US campaign ads in X's disclosure dataset.
Executive summary
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CCDH compared the reach of Elon Musk's personal posts on X to the volume of paid political advertising disclosed in X's official US campaign ad dataset following Musk's endorsement of Donald Trump in July 2024.
The analysis found Musk's political posts accumulated 17.1 billion views, more than double the combined views of all US campaign ads logged in X's ad-transparency data over the same period, with an estimated equivalent ad value of $24 million. Separately, researchers identified at least 87 of Musk's posts promoting election claims that independent fact-checkers had rated false or misleading; these posts drew a combined 2 billion views, and none carried a Community Note.
The report concludes that an individual account holder's organic reach can substantially exceed that of regulated, disclosed political advertising, while X's Community Notes system provided no visible fact-checking intervention on the flagged posts, raising questions about oversight of influential accounts during an election period.
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