(OPINION) An election conspiracy theory is spreading on social media alleging that billionaire Elon Musk hacked the 2024 election in favor of President-elect Donald Trump using his Starlink satellite internet company.
Left-wing conspiracy theorists allege that Starlink, a satellite constellation developed by Musk’s SpaceX designed to provide high-speed broadband internet across the globe, was connected to the voting machine supply chain.
In 2020, right-wing conspiracy theories nearly upended the peaceful transfer of power after President Joe Biden’s victory over then-President Trump.
These false claims, some amplified by Trump leading up to the Capitol riots on January 6, 2021, were widely condemned by Democrats and left-wing supporters. However, unlike the turmoil of 2020, neither Democratic nominee Kamala Harris nor Biden are fueling the conspiracies following the election defeat.
A 9-minute TikTok video by the account @etheria77 states, for starters, that “California and other swing states were able to use Starlink in order to tally up and to count voting ballots in their state.”
The video was shared to X by the @AesPolitics1 account and now has been viewed over 1.6 million times as of Sunday morning.
“This woman just made the most convincing case for Biden to investigate the election. She exposes Starlink,” AesPolitics1 wrote in the X post above the video.
The @AnAct4Progress account, who has “Biden Harris & Harris Walz” in its X bio, attempted to back those claims by replying to the viral post, with a video of podcaster Joe Rogan explaining that Musk allegedly knew that Trump would defeat Vice President Kamala Harris “four hours before the election was called.”
Newsweek has reached out to Musk on Sunday morning via the X media contact email.
