Elon Musk’s X: A Platform with a Right-Wing Lean

WP Analysis Reveals Republican Lawmakers’ Tweets Receive Twice the Views of Democratic Party

(Los Angeles = Yonhap News) Correspondent Mina Lim = An analysis by the US daily Washington Post (WP) has shed light on the changing dynamics of Elon Musk’s X, formerly known as Twitter.

Based on data provided by the non-profit organization National Citizens’ Conference, the WP investigated the number of followers and post views of 50 accounts related to Republican and Democratic lawmakers on X since July of last year. The results show that most of the 33 tweets with a total number of views exceeding 20 million were posted by Republican figures.

Some of the most widely spread posts include a tweet by Jim Jordan (Ohio), Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, which stated “You are not safe in Democrat-run Philadelphia” and included memes related to former President Donald Trump’s claim that ‘they eat people’. Additionally, 17 of the 20 accounts with the largest increase in followers on X belonged to Republican lawmakers.

Looking at the number of views, Republican lawmakers’ posts were viewed an average of 7,900 times last month, which is nearly twice as many as the average of Democratic lawmakers’ posts, which was 4,100 times. The average number of views per post on the White House account has plummeted from 200,000 in July of last year to 100,000 currently.

As X has become increasingly popular among conservatives, right-wing political ads on this platform have also increased, with the amount spent on ads supporting Republican candidates being three times that of ads supporting Democratic candidates, WP reported.

Shannon McGregor, a professor at the University of North Carolina who studies social media platforms, noted that “This platform is not a right-wing platform, but a right-wing led platform.” He further explained that “In the past, political actors on both sides of the aisle viewed Twitter as a place where they could get news reports and people’s reactions, but it no longer has a political focal point. It has become a place for partisan signaling to show that one is a good member of the Republican Party.”

Musk acquired Twitter for $44 billion (about 60.94 trillion won) in October 2022 and renamed it X. Fidelity, an asset management company that provided some funding at the time, assessed X’s corporate value as having fallen 79% from the time of Musk’s acquisition as of the end of August.

Musk has publicly expressed his support for former President Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, and has recently been providing full support as the presidential election day approaches.