Friday, August 2, 2024

Elon Musk is deceptively taking info for U.S. swing state voters and giving it to a Trump PAC

Elon Musk is using X, aka Twitter, to serve up a "Register to Vote" message to users in the United States. If their state's electoral outcome is considered guaranteed, they're taken to voter registration. But if they're in a swing state, they're asked to cough up demographic info which Musk then hands over to a Trump-supportive PAC that Musk created, America PAC — and the person isn't registered to vote.

Read more:
How an Elon Musk PAC is using voter data to help Trump beat Harris in 2024 election, Brian Schwartz, CNBC, August 2, 2024

illustration of guy on phone gesturing 'no'

Also:

"Elon Musk shared a deepfake video spoofing Vice President Kamala Harris on X. Despite owning the platform, the post appears to violate the platform’s own policies against synthetic and manipulated media.

The video Musk shared on Friday [August 2, 2024] alters a recent campaign video Harris released, one that makes it sound like the presidential candidate said things she didn’t. The manipulated clip has Harris saying things like she is “the ultimate diversity hire” and that she “had four years under the tutelage of the ultimate deep state puppet, a wonderful mentor, Joe Biden.” The original account that had posted the video labeled it, “Kamala Harris Campaign Ad PARODY,” a disclaimer that might prevent it from violating X’s policies. But this context did not appear in Musk’s repost. Instead, Musk’s post simply showed the video, adding his own commentary: “This is amazing,” with a laughing emoji."

— Lauren Feiner, "Elon Musk posts deepfake of Kamala Harris that violates X policy," The Verge, July 29, 2024

And:

"Former President Donald Trump plans to offer a job to his billionaire buddy Elon Musk if elected, Reuters reported on Monday [August 19, 2024.

His announcement followed a campaign event in York, Pennsylvania, where Reuters asked Trump about the $7,500 tax credit for electric vehicles. Trump said he would consider terminating it, and also be open to assigning a cabinet or advisory role to Musk, the Tesla Motors co-founder and CEO." (HuffPost)

There are laws about what you can do to get people to register to vote. Elon Musk is offering $1 million giveaways. Seems not legal.

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