Elon Musk's posts criticizing President Joe Biden on X, the social media site he bought in 2022, are growing as the presidential campaign season heads toward the party conventions and the election in November, attacking him on several topics including his age and his immigration policies.
Musk posted about Biden on X at least seven times a month since the beginning of the year, according to an analysis by The New York Times.
He only posted about Biden twice in December and didn't say anything about him in November, and overall, Musk has hit Biden with 40 posts already this year, compared to 30 times for all of 2023.
In comparison, Musk has posted more than 20 times about presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump, mainly defending him and arguing that he is a victim of bias in his criminal cases and that the media has been attacking him.
He also quickly restored Trump's account on X soon after buying the site. Twitter kicked the former president off the platform after the Jan. 6, 2021, protests at the Capitol. Trump has only posted once on X since then, as he posts instead on his platform, Truth Social.
Musk has not endorsed Trump, but he has had several conversations with him, and in March, Musk and Republican donors met with the former president in Palm Beach, Florida. After the meeting, Must posted that he was not donating money to a presidential candidate on either side.
Other social media owners, however, have attempted to remain out of the political realm. Mark Zuckerberg, founder and owner of Meta, the company that includes Facebook and Instagram, rarely posts political content. Similarly, Satya Nadella, the head of Microsoft, and Sundar Pichai, who leads Google, have not pot posted political comments on their company's platforms, LinkedIn and YouTube, respectively.
The Biden campaign, Musk, and X did not respond to the Times' requests for comment.
Social media experts, however, said that Musk is not likely to change the outcome of the election because many of his followers agree already with his stand on politics. Further, X has shifted more to the right after Musk's purchase.
Meanwhile, Musk said he voted for Biden in 2020, and as recently as 2022 was calling himself a reluctant Democrat and a centrist.
He has also not made any financial contributions to any national campaigns since 2020. At that time, he gave money to both Republican and Democrat Senate candidates.
However, in 2022, Musk said he voted for a Republican for the first time, casting his ballot in a special election for Texas' 24th Congressional District.
By that November, Musk was urging voters to choose Republicans in congressional races because a Democrat was in the White House.
Musk also last May hosted an audio stream on X to announce and endorse Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' campaign for the GOP presidential nomination.
In addition, he uses X to support right-wing politicians in other countries, including Argentina President Javier Milei, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, and Narendra Modi, the prime minister of India.