Elon Musk becomes a promoter of fake news in the politics of the United States and the United Kingdom

His most recent participation included sharing a fake news story about the supposed deportation of far-right activists to the Malvinas.

Elon Musk
Elon Musk Elon Musk en una sesión conjunta en el Congreso de Estados Unidos. (Julia Nikhinson/AP)

The billionaire and eccentric Elon Musk, owner of the X network and CEO of Tesla among other investments, seems determined to play a role in the politics of two key countries for the Western world such as the United States and the United Kingdom, through various posts, catastrophic announcements, promoting fake news, and even as an interviewer of Donald Trump.

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Musk's latest involvement occurred this Thursday, when he shared a fake article claiming that the new Labour government of Keir Starmer in Great Britain was considering sending far-right detainees from the recent immigration unrest to the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic.

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What is the new fake news promoted by Elon Musk about?

The article, attributed to a senior writer from The Telegraph and designed in the style of one of the most traditional and respected UK media outlets, stated that the “camps” in the Falklands would be used for recent detainees “since the British prison system is already at full capacity.”

Such fake news was promoted by far-right activist Ashlea Simon, leader of the group Britain First, who wrote "we are all being deported".

Even though it was a baseless news, Musk shared it and wrote “detainment camps”. He then deleted it 30 minutes later. However, the website Politics.co.uk took a screenshot and gained two million visits.

This new controversy involving Elon Musk in the United Kingdom adds to the one from the weekend following protests by far-right racist groups against immigrants and Muslims, after more fake news spread through X attributing the murder of three minors in Southport to a Middle Eastern person who had allegedly entered the country illegally. Authorities debunked the information and clarified that the suspect is a British citizen.

When sharing another post with a video of the incidents from another far-right activist, Musk wrote: "“Civil war is inevitable,” sparking a wave of criticism from the government and various politicians in the United Kingdom.

Elon Musk's role in favor of Trump in the United States

At the end of July, after Joe Biden's decision not to continue with his reelection campaign and to support Kamala Harris' presidential option, Musk shared a video on X that uses an artificial intelligence cloning tool to imitate the voice of the Vice President of the United States with phrases she never said.

The video uses many of the same images as a real Harris ad, but saying derogatory things about Biden.

At first, Musk shared the video and gave it great notoriety without explicitly mentioning that it was fake. Days later, he supposedly clarified that it was "satire."

In both the fake post about the deportation to the Falklands in the United Kingdom and in this one with Harris's fake voice, Musk promotes fake news about center-left politicians and deletes or contextualizes them after they have gained high visibility.

Musk’s involvement in politics includes an upcoming interview he will have with Donald Trump, with whom he shares most of his ideas, in a format that has not yet been explained.

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