America’s richest citizens are using X, previously known as Twitter, to share their thoughts on the election. While most are staying silent, some, like Elon Musk, are very vocal. Musk, who is the world’s richest man, posted a message declaring America as a nation of builders just before the Associated Press called the race in favor of Donald Trump. Other conservative billionaires rallied on X in support of Trump, with some celebrating what they see as a new American Renaissance.
On the other hand, liberal billionaires seemed largely silent on X, with the exception of some earlier posts before the election. Mark Cuban, who campaigned for Kamala Harris, posted about waiting in long voting lines and deleted some of his pro-Harris posts after congratulating Trump. Forbes analyzed posts from the richest American billionaires on X since October 1 and found a total of over 2,000 election-related posts that have been viewed billions of times.
Posts about Kamala Harris and Donald Trump were prevalent among the billionaire posts, with a sentiment analysis revealing that posts mentioning Trump were more positive than those mentioning Harris. The influence of Musk, a vocal Trump supporter, on the platform’s rightward leaning discourse was also noted. Some billionaires, like Jeff Bezos, Jeff Zuckerburg, and venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, have posted pro-Trump messages, while some, like Mark Cuban, have expressed disappointment at the election results.
Several themes emerged from the billionaire posts, including encouraging people to vote, discussions about swing states and undocumented immigrants’ roles, economic issues such as the national debt and tariffs, and concerns about voter fraud. Some billionaires, like Mark Cuban, Miriam Adelson, and Reid Hoffman, took their support beyond posting on social media by becoming surrogates or endorsing candidates in publications they own.
While some billionaires, like Donald Trump and Mark Zuckerburg, are active on their own platforms like Truth Social and Threads respectively, others like Elon Musk continue to use X to stay connected with their followers. Musk, in particular, has been sharing messages of encouragement and positivity on X, resharing posts that suggest the platform is more indicative of public sentiment than traditional polls. As the election results unfolded, Musk urged his followers to see themselves as the media, highlighting the power of social media in shaping public discourse.
