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Elon Musk's election-doubting posts were shared nine times more than his less extreme election content

Elon Musk's posts on his social media platform X receive much more attention when they cast doubt on the integrity of the election process, an NBC News analysis found.

NBC News analyzed more than 700 of Musk's election-related posts since July, collected by the NBC News Decision Desk, and found that he was significantly more engaged in cases where he expressed distrust in the election and sometimes spread conspiracy theories received – as measured by likes, comments and reposts on X – than he did when he posted on other election topics.

The difference in reach was huge: 5.2 times more likes, 4.2 times more comments, and 9.1 times more reposts when comparing the average election doubt post to the average election post that included the process not questioned.

This is despite the fact that many of Musk's claims – such as the alleged non-citizenship vote – are false.

The analysis is a look at what was popular in a key area of ​​the X app over the final four months of the presidential campaign. It's also a glimpse into the incentives for Musk, and perhaps others, as they decide what to post about.

Musk, the world's richest person and CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, is urging people to vote for former President Donald Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris. He has donated more than $118 million to a pro-Trump super PAC he founded and is hosting a controversial $1 million daily prize drawing to raise awareness of the election.

Not only does Musk own X, but it is also his largest account with more than 202 million followers, according to his follower count on the app. According to researchers, X has developed a clear bias in favor of right-wing extremist users and posts since it was purchased by Musk two years ago.

Unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud have real consequences for election officials, who are ramping up security at polling places across the country — including bulletproof vests — in response to an increasingly hostile environment.

As the election neared, Musk increased his election-related posts. According to NBC News' analysis, he posted about the election more than 30 times a day for several days in October, either to arouse suspicion about the process or for other reasons.

Many of Musk's election-doubting posts contain conspiracy theories that have been repeatedly debunked by fact-checkers, including the baseless claim that Democrats are trying to “import” voters into the United States by increasing the number of undocumented immigrants. Only citizens can vote, and to become a citizen, someone must be one of the following: a legal resident for at least five years, a spouse of a U.S. citizen, a member of the U.S. military, or the child of a U.S. citizen.

In a typical election-doubt post, Musk posted on October 5 that in the future, unless Trump wins, “your vote will no longer matter, so this is the last real election.” According to the app's publicly available data, that post received 15.4 million views, 173,000 likes, 12,000 comments and 57,000 reposts.

According to the magazine, Musk told an editor at The Atlantic in July that he would “of course” accept the presidential election results.

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