Topline
Elon Musk indicated Monday fellow tech billionaire Mark Zuckerberg spent hundreds of millions of dollars to help elect Democrats including President Joe Biden in the 2020 election, parroting a misleading assertion fueled by election fraud zealots including former President Donald Trump.
Zuckerberg testifies before Congress in 2018.
Key Facts
“My understanding is that Zuckerberg spent $400 million in the last election nominally in a get out the vote campaign but really fundamentally in support of Democrats,” Musk said in an interview with Fox News’ Tucker Carlson which aired Monday night.
Musk is referring to September and October 2020 donations totaling $419 million Zuckerberg and his wife made to the Center for Tech and Civic Life and the Center for Election Innovation & Research, nonprofits dedicated to aid in-person voting.
“Does that sound unbiased to you?” Musk asked Carlson, responding to his own rhetorical question later on Twitter, “Umm … no.”
That repeats a claim most notably endorsed by Trump, who baselessly said in October 2021 Zuckerberg “change[d] the course of a Presidential Election” and is a “criminal;” a 2022 Associated Press fact check found these claims of Zuckerberg swaying the election in favor of Democrats was “missing context” and influenced by false claims of election fraud.
Benjamin Hovland, the commissioner of the Election Assistance Commission, testified before Congress in 2021 that Zuckerberg’s donation went toward “the basics,” including personal protective equipment, disinfecting polling centers and ensuring the possibility of social distancing.
Meta did not immediately respond to Forbes’ request for comment, but a representative for Zuckerberg strongly denied the accusations, telling Business Insider in 2021 that more Republican than Democratic jurisdictions received funding via the initiative.
Key Background
Long-time billionaire Silicon Valley brethren, Musk and Zuckerberg officially became rivals last October after Musk’s surprise acquisition of Twitter went through. A self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist,” Musk has worked to strip Twitter of its supposed liberal tilt, stripping the site of much of its content moderation protocols and reinstating the accounts of various right-wing figureheads, including Trump. Zuckerberg has not publicly stated his political affiliation, and the 38-year-old has made donations to Democrats and Republicans, according to federal election records. In an October 2020 post, Zuckerberg said accusations of a “partisan agenda” fueling his nine-figure donations were “false.” A spokesperson for Chan and Zuckerberg told the New York Times last April the couple would not repeat the donations, calling it a “one-time” gift “to help ensure that Americans could vote during the height of the pandemic.”
Forbes Valuations
Musk ($189 billion) and Zuckerberg ($78 billion) are the second and 10th-richest Americans, respectively, according to Forbes’ calculations. A majority of Musk’s wealth comes from his stake in Tesla, the electric vehicle behemoth he leads as CEO, while most of Zuckerberg’s riches come from his stake in Meta, where he has served as CEO since the company’s inception in 2004.
Tangent
Musk made several other notable comments in his rare sit down interview with Carlson, confirming Twitter is now worth just half of the $44 billion sticker price he paid for the company in 2022 and vowing to create “TruthGPT,” an artificial intelligence program designed to rival OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Further Reading
Musk Admits Twitter Purchase Wasn’t ‘Financially Smart’—And He Paid Twice What It’s Worth (Forbes)
‘Maximum Truth-Seeking AI’: Musk Says He’s Building ‘TruthGPT’ In Tucker Carlson Interview (Forbes)
Posts misrepresent Mark Zuckerberg’s election spending (Associated Press)
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2023/04/18/elon-musk-spreads-misleading-claim-about-mark-zuckerberg-donating-millions-to-get-biden-in-office/