Elon Musk has laughed off suggestions that the UK riots were a “trial balloon for the US election”.
Accusations levelled at the X owner by Carole Cadwalladr in the Guardian were met with a sneering response after social upheaval broke out in Britain ahead of the US election and four years on from the storming of the Capitol in Washington.
Pockets of disturbances were prompted by fake reports being circulated on X by prominent accounts such as Andrew Tate and the recently reinstated Tommy Robinson.
Musk also had to delete a repost where he promoted a false claim about detainment camps being set up in the Falkland Islands for those involved in violent riots in the past week.
Writing in the Guardian, Cadwalladr said the prospect of political violence in the US following the upcoming election is real, saying Musk’s behaviour is a “warning shot of what’s to come.”
She points out that, while many social media platforms are complicit in helping misinformation spread like wildfire, X is particularly culpable.
“What Musk – the new self-appointed Lord of Misrule – has done is to rip off the mask. He’s shown that you don’t even have to pretend to care,” she said.
“In Musk’s world, trust is mistrust and safety is censorship. His goal is chaos. And it’s coming.”
Responding to the article, the X owner described it as “comically unhinged”, saying it made him laugh out loud:
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