Brussels (Brussels Morning Newspaper) — Elon Musk’s growing political influence and X’s focus on free speech are reshaping the United States digital landscape. Mark Zuckerberg’s recent announcements suggest that even larger global competitors are adopting Musk’s approach.
How did Elon Musk transform Twitter into X?
Elon Musk acquired Twitter for $44 billion on the 27th of October 2022, rebranding it as X and fundamentally changing the platform to break from the status quo of American social media. He introduced paid verification, expanded long-form content, and launched the “Community Notes”, a crowdsourced fact-checking tool meant to replace traditional in-house fact-checking. With a mission statement to “promote public conversation and create a town square of the internet,
“X aimed to distinguish itself by challenging current societal efforts to fight misinformation and disinformation online – a controversial strategy at the time encapsulated by Elon Musk’s optimistic slogan “You are the media now.”
The newfound political role of X and Elon Musk
Since its acquisition, X has reinvented itself following the socio-cultural beliefs of the world’s richest person, Elon Musk. The platform has also experienced a noticeable shift toward right-leaning users and content. This shift is clearly visible through users’ reported feeling about the platform, with 53% of Republicans now seeing X as “mostly good” for democracy – a significant leap from 17% in 2021 – while Democratic approval has fallen from 47% to just 26% over the same time. Keeping in mind that more than two-thirds of the users primarily use X to access news, the platform has become a major source of political information for its 611 million users worldwide.
How to explain X’s influence over bigger and more established social media?
X’s political influence stems from a broader cultural shift in U.S. politics favoring Republicans, as well as Elon Musk’s unexpected appointment as head of the Department of Government Efficiency. These shifts seem to have positioned X at the center of a new and more politicized social media landscape, where competitors will have to either strongly oppose to X’s vision of free speech or take inspiration from it – the social media giant META (formerly Facebook) and its 3 billion users seems to have chosen the latter. Indeed, on the 26th of August 2024, Mark Zuckerberg admitted to censoring content during the COVID-19 pandemic under pressure from the Biden administration, expressing strong regret. On the 7th of January 2025, Meta replaced its fact-checking program with a user-driven system inspired by X’s Community Notes. Furthermore, after the 2024 election, Zuckerberg strengthened his ties with the Trump administration by donating $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund and appointing UFC President, and Trump ally, Dana White to Meta’s board of directors. This unexpected change in strategy from a seemingly untouchable competitor signals a new era of social media. An era initiated, for the better or for the worse, by Elon Musk’s X.
X is trending, but challenges remain
Despite its status as a heavyweight, X faces headwinds that pose real threats to its stability as a business. The service recorded a 40% revenue decline year-on-year in mid-2024 for instance. This drop has been compounded by an advertiser exodus prompted by controversies and accusations of platform toxicity. User engagement is also struggling, with a projected shrinkage of 7 million monthly active U.S. users from 2022 to 2025 and an 8.4% decline in daily users after the 2024 election. To make matters worse, X’s brand value also fell, plummeting from the 44 billion dollars spent by Musk in 2022 to approximately 12 billion dollars according to an Axios report.
Moreover, on a personal note, Elon Musk’s increasing involvement in European politics has created tensions with European leaders. French President Emmanuel Macron even directly accused Musk of promoting a new “Reactionary International” movement that fragilizes European democracies. All while regulatory pressures have also intensified, with the European Commission deepening its investigation into X’s compliance with the Digital Services Act (DSA) amid growing concerns about the platform’s adherence to EU social media laws.
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