Musk Shares Misleading Claims About Mark Zuckerberg’s Influence Over 2020 Election

Topline

Twitter owner Elon Musk shared a column Tuesday claiming fellow billionaire Mark Zuckerberg’s donations to nonprofits during the 2020 presidential election swayed the outcome in favor of President Joe Biden, doubling down on a disputed theory Musk endorsed last month.

Zuckerberg donated $420 million to two nonprofits during the 2020 presidential election, sparking … [+] controversy.

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Key Facts

Musk tweeted a link to a story published in The Federalist, a right-leaning online publication, alleging the Facebook founder “bought” the 2020 presidential election by making large donations, calling it an “Interesting article” and inviting users to add further context and corrections using Twitter’s Community Notes feature.

In a reply, Musk suggested Zuckerberg “is *extremely* partisan.”

The column argues the 2020 election was “bought” by Zuckerberg, referring to Zuckerberg’s donation of almost $420 million to two nonpartisan nonprofit organizations—the Center for Technology and Civic Life (CTCL) and the Center for Election Innovation and Research (CEIR)—that aim to encourage voter participation.

The column found that Biden won the majority in dozens of jurisdictions that received funding from CTCL in key states in 2020—it did not include data about the outcome in jurisdictions that received funding from CEIR.

In April, Musk shared similar views on Tucker Carlson’s former Fox News show, saying Zuckerberg’s spending on the 2020 election was “nominally … a get out the vote campaign” but “fundamentally in support of Democrats.”

Key Background

Zuckerberg’s donations to election groups have drawn scrutiny in recent years, but the Associated Press found last year the allegations were misleading. Ben LaBolt, a spokesperson for Zuckerberg, denied claims that the billionaire had influenced elections in an interview with AP, saying money from CTCL and CEIR went to nearly 2,500 jurisdictions with a variety of demographics. The story shared by Musk argues Zuckerberg’s funding helped finance “the infiltration of election offices at the city and county level by left-wing activists,” though Benjamin Hovland, a commissioner for the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, told Congress much of the money was actually used for “basic” mundane purposes like personal protective equipment and disinfecting polling centers during the election. Some jurisdictions also reportedly used funding from private groups to pay for staff and equipment to process mail-in ballots, which The Federalist story claimed made fraud possible, though direct evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election has not emerged. Zuckerberg did not donate directly to Biden’s 2020 campaign, according to Federal Election Commission records.

Tangent

Musk’s comments echo those of former President Donald Trump, who said in October 2021 Zuckerberg “change[d] the course of a Presidential Election,” adding onto allegations of election fraud that spun out into a riot on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Musk has grown increasingly outspoken in favor of Republicans in recent months, even though he said he voted for Biden in 2020 and has donated money to both Democrats and Republicans over the past two decades. In November, he tweeted that he “recommend[s] voting for a Republican Congress” because the president is a Democrat and said on Twitter he would back Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) as a presidential candidate.

Musk Shares Misleading Claims About Mark Zuckerberg’s Influence Over 2020 Election—Again

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