‘Elon Musk Is Gaming the Internet for Fascism’ — My Latest Hot Type Column in Byline
For this week’s Hot Type column in Byline Supplement, I focus on Elon Musk’s scorched earth tactics to destroy truth in service of fascism. Enjoy this excerpt with bonus comments
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Below is an excerpt from this week’s column, and you will also find bonus commentary from guests who weighed in after Byline’s publication:
Elon Musk Is Gaming the Internet for Fascism
The billionaire X owner is accelerating his AI-driven assaults on reality and Europe had better harden its defences, argues Heidi Siegmund Cuda
An excerpt from Byline Supplement:
“Vladimir Putin has said that whoever controls AI will control the world, and it appears that Musk is doing everything he can to help Putin along.”—Craig Unger
A video of Elon Musk, the stretched out neck of his t-shirt hanging loosely, is making the rounds on Twitter/X.
“Eventually we’re going to see widespread slaughter in Europe,” he says in a video to the Italian League Party Congress, stoking fear about mass migration and sounding like a racist chatbot.
“You’re clearly seeing a massive increase in the number of attacks. And the legacy media downplays these attacks. But the attacks, the terrorism, the killing of innocent people is rising. Every week, there’s more.”
He suggests to “extrapolate the graph” and one wonders if he even knows what extrapolate means.
His statement is entirely bereft of facts, and that prompts fiery retorts on Twitter/X.
Geopolitical analyst Joni Askola posted a real graph showing violent crime on the decline throughout Europe:
Byline Times co-founder Peter Jukes wrote: “The violent homicide rate in Europe is much much lower than the US. Why does Musk spout this utter bollox…”
“Musk wants you to think he cares about anything that happens to people. But what he wants is to merely usher in a new Russia-aligned system of fascist political parties that are the only key to the next level of wealth he desires. Neo-feudalism. Russia has monopolized anti-immigration into far right political parties while moderates still have no idea what’s going on.”
Blogger Bob Morgan wrote:
“Elon Musk has helped Trump to seriously harm America and now wants the UK to suffer the same. He is an enemy of democracy and justice and anyone who isn’t rich.”
Using X as a Weapon of War
Musk has been spending his billions on multiple platforms and outlets to spread disinformation throughout the world.
“Some of the most powerful assaults against democracy are unseen and are taking place without ruffling any feathers,” investigative reporter and author Craig Unger told Byline Supplement. “When Elon Musk bought Twitter, he was effectively making a $44 billion campaign contribution to Trump.”
Unger, the author of multiple books on Trump-Russia, noted: “Vladimir Putin has said that whoever controls AI will control the world, and it appears that Musk is doing everything he can to help Putin along.”
Musk’s Grok is among the AI models pushing Russian state propaganda, actually citing Russian state media sites, when prompted about the war in Ukraine.
Researchers from the Institute of Strategic Dialogue (ISD) report that Russian propaganda is leaching its way into chatbots, despite coming from Russian paid sites that are banned in Europe.
And anyone who has spent time on Twitter, now X, can see that our prediction from three years ago that Musk would use it as a weapon of war proved accurate…
The Eye of the Hurricane
We are now in the eye of that reality-destroying hurricane, led by the richest man in the world, whose Orwellian-named Department of Government Efficiency was part of the greatest hack in US history, and who is now openly targeting Wikipedia — the public square of fact retrieval and forged common narrative. His launch of Grokipedia this week is raising giant red flags.
“Elon Musk’s new Grokipedia project marks an accelerating drift into far-right and antisemitic conspiracy narratives,” disinformation researcher Matthew Pearce told Byline Supplement.
“His recent statements echo the old ‘cultural Marxism’ and ‘white replacement’ tropes that falsely blame Jewish communities for encouraging non-white immigration to destabilise Western societies. This sits alongside his refusal to acknowledge his own daughter, his minimisation of the crimes of apartheid, and his fixation on an unreachable Mars mission—an obsession that recalls the discredited Soviet ‘Cosmism’ cult which imagined humanity’s divine destiny among the stars.
“Together, these themes position Musk squarely within the emerging techno-restorationist bloc—figures like Peter Thiel and Curtis Yarvin—who dream of a new digital feudalism where self-anointed ‘tech geniuses’ rule unchecked over the rest of society. It is a dangerous, regressive vision that must be challenged before it reshapes the future.”
Finnish analyst Joni Askola said Musk’s Grokipedia is designed to tighten narrative control.
“It’s not about facts but about control,” Askola said. “Musk can’t control Wikipedia, but he can control Grokipedia. He has also continued his habit of stirring political tensions, especially in the United Kingdom, where he recently claimed once again that a civil war is ‘inevitable.’ Musk’s open support for far-right parties like Germany’s AfD shows just how dangerous his influence has become… What’s most alarming is how few people are willing to challenge him… That makes him not just influential, but one of the most dangerous people in the world today.”
Analyst Dr Michael MacKay said Musk is actually poisoning the free world.
“Elon Musk is gaming the Internet for fascism. He’s doing that by seeding Grok with a massive volume of conspiracist, anti-democracy, Russian-sourced propaganda. Presented as a reference, Grok is now a well-spring of lies – poison to free societies,” MacKay told Byline Supplement…
“A lie is not another point of view… Grok presents a false picture of Russia’s war to uncritical users…
“Elon Musk, Grok and ‘X’ must be heavily regulated if we are to survive.”
Fighting Back
One world leader, President Emmanuel Macron of France, seems to be taking the lead.
“If we Europeans do not wake up, to say, ‘We want to take back control of our democracies,’ I’m writing it to you: in 10 years, all those who are playing on or with this infrastructure will have won. And we will be a continent, like many others, of conspiracy theorists, extremists, noise and fury”…
“It is long past time for Europe to push back,” said Joni Askola. “The only question is, who will have the courage to do it.”
Vive la Résistance?
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Disinformation analysts Dietmar Pichler, who is leading our group discussion on Tuesday, and Alex Alvarova, sent me their thoughts after I had sent off the column to Byline. I am including their quotes as a bonus sidebar this week’s Hot Type column:
Musk shared a video from right-wing populist influencer Naomi Seibt, where she asks for asylum in the United States. In this video, she states, for instance, that she faces persecution for her support of the right-wing populist party “AfD,” which she calls “the only opposition party” in Germany. This is not true; there are several opposition parties in Germany, for instance, the left-wing populist parties Die Linke and Bündnis Wagenknecht (both with controversial views about Russia), or the liberal party FDP. Bündnis Wagenknecht and, to a large extent, also Die Linke strongly oppose the current foreign policy of the German government.
Musk also posted that “only the AfD can save Germany,” which shows his open support for the party. The AfD is not only a right-wing populist party but has in the past also held a very critical view of the United States and the European Union. Whether supporting this party is really in the strategic interest of the transatlantic relationship is, in my opinion, at least questionable. Musk’s statements about the security situation connected to immigration show a highly exaggerated picture. There are issues, and also politicians who downplay problems, but if we take a look at the homicide rate, Europe remains one of the safest regions in the world.
Talking about the reaction of society, it seems that people have a very stubborn attitude when it comes to admitting that they have been lied to, especially when it has been going on for a long time. The echo chambers have worked quite well and sustainably over the past years; we see that not many people have changed their minds when it comes to claims that go against science or even against reality.
At the government level, we have not seen the strategic communication necessary to tackle the issues of disinformation, foreign interference, or domestic fake campaigns. In some cases, the government is even part of the dissemination of highly questionable narratives.
I personally think that freedom of speech, one of our highest values, cannot serve as an excuse not to expose actors and narratives that are against our interests. Not only do the platforms fail to do enough, or even do less than before, to fight this problem, but we also see many activities outside social media, even outside the internet, aimed at undermining our democracy. This is something that often remains unmentioned because people tend to hesitate to point the finger at real actors, whether they are individuals or organizations. It is more comfortable to focus the discourse only on anonymous trolls. One example is that we still have no transparency about who was paid by Russia to spread propaganda; the public deserves this information.—Dietmar Pichler
Musk has all the markers of an ideal target for Russian influence op. He is on the spectrum, was raised by his mom who repeatedly told him he is a genius and raised him by flattery, while his pedo father raised him by cruelty. This might be the same deadly combo as Trump. These people are so easy to manipulate through their eternal pain and grievances, as every single member of the MAGA cult. They can feed each other souls in their dark desire to burn the world down. And Russians just use them according to the common script. And loan them money and resources to make their operational damage larger and deeper. Americans do not understand that these trapped ghouls were never interested in ruling, their one and only motivation is destruction. And God knows how much Russians want to watch it. To them, it means everything.—Alex Alvarova
For those of you unfamiliar with Errol Musk, Elon Musk’s father, he fathered multiple children with Elon’s stepsister, and has been accused of child sexual assault. He stated this week that he’d be interested in obtaining a Russian passport, which reminded me of this clip from Keir Giles, taken from a January 10, 2023 guest appearance on RadPod:
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