How Elon Musk’s X became the global right’s supercharged front page
As a business proposition, Elon Musk’s ownership of X, formerly known as Twitter, has so far been a disaster: since he acquired it in late 2022, the social media company, according to one estimate, has lost nearly 80% of its value.As a political proposition, however, Musk’s purchase may turn out to be one of the shrewdest investments of all time.Every week, the platform seems to supercharge a news issue that comes to dominate conservative discourse – and often mainstream discourse, as well – with real political repercussions.Sometimes these topics are inflammatory conspiracy theories, like a false rumor that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, had been eating cats and dogs, which became a talking point in the final days of the US presidential election and led to bomb threats and harassment against Springfield residents.Other times, X, often aided by Musk’s own posts, elevates fact-based but contentious stories – about illegal immigration, government waste, visa fraud, population decline, youth gender transition or government crackdowns on social media speech – that the mainstream media is perceived to have ignored or downplayed.
This week, X single-handedly revived a scandal about British “grooming gangs” – groups of men of primarily, but not exclusively, Pakistani descent who are known to have sexually abused hundreds of young girls in northern England in the 1990s and 2000s while local authorities often failed to act,On X, Musk has called for British prime minister Keir Starmer, who was the director of public prosecutions for part of the time that many of the crimes took place, to “face charges”,He was followed by American hedge-fund billionaire Bill Ackman, who joined the chorus to demand that the US place sanctions on the UK,Musk, who has engineered the X algorithm to boost his own tweets, often drives the change in public conversation,With a single retweet, often accompanied by just a few words (“This is interesting”) or an emoji, Musk can put a post by an anonymous or relatively obscure rightwing X account in front of his 210 million followers – more than five times the population of Canada.
In recent months, he has often suggested that X is the real press.“You are the media now,” he likes to tell users of the platform.As many as 2.7 million people have departed X since the US presidential election, with many prominent journalists, pundits and left-leaning social media users angry at Musk’s politics joining alternative platforms such as Bluesky.But X – whose political content is now almost completely rightwing and ranges from conservative-leaning centrists to literal neo-Nazis – has hardly gone away.
If anything, it seems more powerful than ever.Musk’s position in the incoming Trump administration – as co-chair, with Vivek Ramaswamy, of a new “department of government efficiency”, or Doge – started as a Twitter joke.But Musk has now used X as a platform to make aggressive interventions in not only US politics but those of other countries.He has endorsed the far-right AfD party in Germany and repeatedly hammered at the British Labour party.During anti-migrant riots in the UK last year he disparaged the prime minister as a “two-tier Keir” who protects the interests of immigrants in Britain over those of native-born citizens.
Musk is also friendly with the far-right Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni,Musk’s ideological closeness with rightwing populist parties across the world may prove beneficial to his business interests as those movements continue to win political power,One of X’s most interesting aspects as the emerging front page of the conservative internet is its ability to turn stories that aren’t strictly news into news,A British Home Office minister’s recent refusal to open a national inquiry into grooming gangs was the ostensible news hook for that story’s sudden topicality, but a topic doesn’t really need recency for X to vault it into headlines,If anything, the fact that the grooming story isn’t “new” isn’t as important as the fact that it is new to many of the people hearing about it, with American users of X and some British ones shocked not only at the scale of the child abuse that occurred and perceived lack of public accountability – but also at the fact that they’d never heard of it before.
“Yes, it’s true – people have gone to jail, people have lost their jobs, and recommendations for change have been published, and to some extent even implemented,” the conservative British writer Ben Sixsmith noted in a short essay about the grooming gangs.“There has not been a conspiracy of silence.There has instead been a conspiracy of murmuring.The establishment … have addressed the scandal in the most minimal terms” – making it a continued and charged issue.Musk has seized the momentum to suggest that Britons support Nigel Farage’s hard-right Reform party.
He’s also called for the far-right activist Tommy Robinson – who is currently in jail for contempt of court and whom even Farage has generally sought to distance himself from – to be freed.Sara Rowbotham, a whistleblower who was one of the first to draw attention to the grooming gangs crisis, has questioned Musk’s “motivation for interfering”.His interest “seems very political”, she recently told the Guardian.“The person he is trying to go after is Keir Starmer – it is a political swipe that is nothing to do with the women and girls who have been abused time after time.”Sometimes, X’s power backfires against the right: most recently, an ugly debate about H1-B foreign worker visas exposed a tension between Musk, Ramaswamy and the “Silicon Valley right” and the more nativist Maga right.
For the large part, however, Musk’s bet on X seems to be paying off,“Once [people] realize that legacy media lies, they never forget it,” Musk has said,
Rise in UK borrowing costs could push Reeves to new public spending cuts
Rachel Reeves could be forced to make fresh cuts to public spending at her March “spring forecast” as a rise in government borrowing costs risks the chancellor breaking her own fiscal rules.With the government under pressure on the economy, City analysts warned that Britain’s long-term borrowing costs hitting the highest level since 1998 risked wiping out almost all of a £10bn buffer the chancellor had kept in reserve at the autumn budget.The yield – in effect the interest rate – on UK 30-year debt rose by 0.4 percentage points to 5.22%, above the peak reached after Liz Truss’s mini-budget in 2022 sparked turmoil in financial markets, to hit the highest level in 27 years
Shein lawyer accused of ‘wilful ignorance’ over cotton linked to forced Uyghur labour
The online fashion seller Shein has refused to reassure British MPs that its products do not include cotton produced in the Xinjiang region of China, which has been linked to forced Uyghur labour, prompting one MP to accuse its representative of “wilful ignorance”.In testy exchanges before MPs on the business and trade committee, Yinan Zhu, the general counsel for Shein’s European arm, repeatedly said she was not qualified to answer questions about the fast-fashion retailer’s supply chain amid concerns from campaigners over forced labour.Zhu said she could not answer questions about whether Shein’s manufacturers – none of which the company owns directly – used the controversial yarn or whether any of them were based in the Xinjiang region. She said the company may be able to provide a written answer in future.Zhu was sent a dossier outlining links between cotton production in the region and forced labour of the Muslim minority Uyghur people
Why did Mark Zuckerberg end Facebook and Instagram’s fact-checking program?
Meta is shifting to the right, following the prevailing political winds blowing through the United States. A more partisan era now looms for the social media giant and its corporate leaders, though Mark Zuckerberg himself has few personal politics other than ambition.On Tuesday morning, Meta disbanded Facebook and Instagram’s third-party factchecking program. The company will also recommend more political content across its social networks.CEO Zuckerberg announced the changes as he attempts to curry favor with Donald Trump’s incoming administration, demonstrating just how far he will go to win the president-elect’s approval
Ditching of Facebook factcheckers a ‘major step back’ for public discourse, critics say
Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to ditch factcheckers on Facebook and “prioritise free speech” weeks before Donald Trump returns to power was condemned on Tuesday as a “major step back” for public discourse.The Meta founder announced multiple changes to his platforms including Facebook and Instagram in an attempt to “dramatically reduce the amount of censorship”.In a statement on Tuesday he said that, starting in the US, independent factcheckers would be replaced in the US by a system of “community notes” similar to that used on X, Elon Musk’s social media platform which relies on users to add caveats and context to contentious posts.Content moderation teams will also be moved from California to Texas “where there is less concern about the bias of our teams”, said Zuckerberg in a five-minute video statement that Nina Jankowicz, a former US government official tasked with fighting disinformation, described as “a full bending of the knee to Trump”.Changes to the way Meta filters content will also mean “we’re going to catch less bad stuff” while still taking seriously “a lot of legitimately bad stuff out there, drugs, terrorism, child exploitation”, Zuckerberg said
Feyi-Waboso injury leaves Borthwick’s England short of options for Six Nations
Steve Borthwick has mounting headaches over his back-three contingent before the Six Nations with Immanuel Feyi-Waboso, George Furbank and Ollie Sleightholme all sidelined with injuriesFeyi-Waboso has a dislocated shoulder and with surgery beckoning, he is facing a spell on the sidelines that would rule him out of the entire Six Nations, dealing Steve Borthwick what would be a major setback before a crucial campaign that begins away to Ireland on 1 February.As one of the 17 players handed an enhanced England contract in October – giving Borthwick the final say over sports science matters – Feyi-Waboso has been in consultation with the national setup over how to deal with the injury. It is believed Feyi-Waboso had decided to go ahead with the operation but on Tuesday night Exeter insisted he was still discussing his options with Exeter and England.A lengthy layoff would also be a blow for Andy Farrell, who is undertaking a reconnaissance mission in Australia before to this summer’s British and Irish Lions tour. Feyi-Waboso would have the chance to stake a claim upon his return – expected in late March – but Farrell would want to see him in action during the Six Nations
Behind the scenes: a first look at Djokovic and Murray together on court
As one of the first to witness the two legendary rivals as player and coach, our correspondent gives his take from their grand slam practice sessionDuring his short time as one of the leading tennis players of his generation, Carlos Alcaraz has methodically built a reputation for his fearlessness and nerve. Even in the face of some of the most accomplished opponents and lofty occasions, the pressure has so often elevated his game to greater heights.On Tuesday afternoon in a near-empty Margaret Court Arena, however, the 21-year-old could have been forgiven for feeling slightly intimidated. Across the net stood not one but two of the greatest tennis players in the history of the sport, two legendary rivals who have joined forces with the obvious goal of holding him and his contemporaries off for as long as they can. For the first time ever, Andy Murray joined Novak Djokovic in a grand slam practice session as the 24-time grand slam champion’s coach
Lib Dems call for Kemi Badenoch to sack Robert Jenrick over ‘divisive comments’
Labour apologises for TikTok video with ‘inappropriate’ soundtrack
Keir Starmer’s NHS plan: what are the key elements and can it succeed?
‘We stand by Jess’: Telford survivors criticise Musk’s attack on Phillips
‘I haven’t seen any change’: black Labour voters in Liverpool and London six months on
Starmer condemns ‘lies and misinformation’ as he hits back at Musk