President-elect Donald Trump's sweeping victory in the 2024 election—built on the back of a last-minute alliance with Elon Musk—raises an unprecedented First Amendment question, one that’s never been asked in American history.
What happens when two government officials own two of the mainstream communications channels in the country?
Trump owns a 58.9% stake in Trump Media and Technology Group, the ultimate owner of Truth Social, his self-styled free speech social network.
The platform was set up in 2022 after Trump was banned from then-Twitter in the wake of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
Trump used the platform to vent about injustices as he fought court cases over the insurrection and his various other crimes, to subsequently campaign for election in 2024—and, because it’s Trump—to make money along the way.
Musk, who donated more than $100 million through his political action group, America, to the Trump 2024 campaign, bought X in 2022 under the guise of freeing it from liberal tyranny.
Both Musk and Trump have long made their names and reputations by crusading against woke censorship and in the name of free speech. But come January 2025, they’ll have their hands on the levers of both private and public discourse.
X is by far the larger of the two platforms, with hundreds of millions of monthly active users, compared to Truth Social’s far smaller five million.
Combined, they have serious heft. Each serves its purpose. Truth Social is where right-wing adherents of Trump congregate among themselves; percolating over injustices, perceived and real. X is where they launch it to the rest of the world, where people who still use the platform as a source of breaking news end up being served right-wing talking points thanks to Musk’s algorithm.
Their respective owners seem likely to be in government in two months if Musk takes up Trump’s offer to head a government efficiency body.
That causes myriad concerns. A massive media conglomerate has never been owned by a sitting president. And one of the world’s most popular social networks has never been run by someone set to sit in his cabinet.
Separating business interests from the presidency was the norm before Trump—Jimmy Carter divested from his peanut farm when he entered the White House. Trump did no such thing with his businesses when elected the first time and, given his stake in Truth Social could be worth billions, likely won’t again.
It’s highly doubtful Musk would relinquish any control over the site to serve in the administration—and with Trump, he won’t have to.
This stands in stark contrast to the Biden administration, which worked to reduce or remove any conflicts of interest while rebuking the first Trump administration’s approach to similar issues.
“Traditional media ownership rules were designed to prevent excessive concentration of control over public discourse,” said Katja Muñoz, a research fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations who examines how social media and politics intertwine. “Separation between government and media has historically been seen as important for democracy,” points out Muñoz.
But these two would break with all precedent, at a time when Americans are opting away from traditional media sources.
While new media always helped government officials and politicians better communicate with citizens (and find new ways to be abused), never before have the leaders been able to tweak the way it’s received, shifting responses, downranking or silencing backlash, and banning dissidents.
Could Musk or Trump, while serving in office, legally ban a user? Could they remove a post they don’t like? Does owning an algorithm, even, violate a citizen's right to free expression?
And when news outlets publish stories, would down-ranking or blocking them violate their right to a free press?
Trump and Musk would likely cite Biden's own backchannels with social media sites over COVID, but even when the administration leaned on Meta and others, the sites still retained independence.
Now, if Trump doesn’t want to see memes mocking him on X, there's likely no recourse.
Musk recently fought with the Brazilian government over a disagreement about banning accounts.
While some doubted his motives and tactics, would he put forth the same resistance if Trump asked someone to be banned?
Alongside that, comes powerful access to reams of information.
“Problems arise due to the unprecedented potential information access and privacy issues might lead to surveillance, like DMs, usage patterns, and personal information,” Muñoz says.
It’s not inconceivable to imagine a world where private conversations on Musk or Trump-owned platforms are made public.
In leaking the Twitter Files, Musk shared private correspondence about the platform. It led to a wave of threats against an employee, who was forced into hiding over backlash.
Musk could do that to any American's DMs, under the auspices of government work, without any threat of punishment.
While guardrails ostensibly exist, the alliance comes at a time when the U.S. has taken a broadly hands-off approach to regulating tech.
Instead of hearty oversight and regulations, Congress dithered.
And the GOP’s broad success in 2024 means pliant regulators at the FTC and FCC, too, the only agencies with the ability to crack down outside of Capitol Hill.
That is the only solution, Muñoz said. “There needs to be independent oversight of any interaction between official duties and platform ownership.”
But that seems unlikely to happen.
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