Elon Musk has boosted the 'pizzagate' conspiracy
theory five times in the last two weeks
A new iteration of "pizzagate" has focused
on unfounded claims that journalists were part of the conspiracy theory.
Nov. 29,
2023, 12:09 AM CET
By Ben
Goggin
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/elon-musk-boosted-pizzagate-conspiracy-theory-rcna127087
Elon Musk
continued to boost a debunked conspiracy theory Tuesday, posting and later
deleting a meme on X that referred to a fringe, far-right claim that sought to
connect members of the Democratic Party with child abuse.
Musk wrote
“does seem at least a little suspicious” alongside a meme drawing from the TV
show “The Office,” which included fake dialogue superimposed on images of a
character arguing that “Pizzagate is real,” a reference to a conspiracy theory
that gained traction in 2016 and culminated with a North Carolina man’s opening
fire in a Washington, D.C., pizza restaurant. NBC News reviewed the post before
it was taken down.
In another
post replying to the first, Musk linked to an Associated Press article
published by NBC News about an ABC News journalist’s pleading guilty to federal
child pornography charges. NBC News could not locate any content related to
pizzagate published by the ABC News journalist on his archived author page.
X did not
immediately respond to a request for comment.
Since Nov.
20, Musk has responded to tweets referring to pizzagate four other times. The
posts are a recent iteration of the debunked theory focused on unfounded
insinuations that journalists were part of the conspiracy theory.
Musk
remains embroiled in controversy for an X post this month in which he boosted
an antisemitic conspiracy theory. Since then, he has denied he is antisemitic,
visiting Israel and meeting with government officials, including Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu.
That has
done little to stop advertisers from leaving the platform. On Tuesday, The
Washington Post said it would pause advertising on it, according to The
Washingtonian, citing a Post spokesperson.
Mike
Rothschild, an author who has written several books about the rise of recent
extreme conspiracy theories, said the version of pizzagate that Musk is
promoting is different from and more expansive than the original conspiracy
theory that inspired the 2016 shooting.
That theory
focused on the false claim that a child trafficking ring was being run out of
the Comet Ping Pong pizza restaurant. No evidence has ever been found to
validate that claim.
“Now it’s
just code for ‘bad stuff elites are doing to kids,’” Rothschild said.
“There’s
definitely a risk to him promoting this, even if he thinks it’s a joke,” he
said. “He’s turning a lot of people who weren’t redpilled for pizzagate in 2016
on to hard-core conspiracy theories and antisemitism and giving it a major
platform.”
The ABC
News journalist Musk referred to was folded into online discussion of pizzagate
when a fake New York Post headline circulated that was fabricated to say the
journalist had had a hand in “debunking” pizzagate.
A similar
headline was applied to a different journalist who also became the subject of
posts from Musk. That journalist, who was featured in three pizzagate-related
posts that Musk responded to, was arrested this month on charges of possessing
and transmitting child sexual abuse material; there’s no indication that he had
a central role in debunking pizzagate.
Musk’s
replies included expressions of shock at the charges. He wrote in one post,
“any reporter who is this horrifically evil obviously cannot be trusted.”
Musk, who
has criticized journalists and media outlets for years, has become increasingly
combative with the media and organizations he perceives as his enemies.
He sued
Media Matters for America, which reports on politicians, journalists and media
outlets, on Nov. 20 saying that posts from the outlet reporting on ads and
antisemitic content on the platform were malicious and designed to adversely
affect X’s revenue.
Media
Matters President Angelo Carusone said in a statement that he stands behind the
organization’s work and called the lawsuit “frivolous.”
Ben Goggin
Ben Goggin
is the deputy editor for technology at NBC News Digital.
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