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In what’s proving to be a more powerful love story than Romeo and Juliet (don’t quote me, I never read it), the bromance between Elon Musk and Donald Trump appears to be going strong, with the former’s social media platform reading like something of a love letter in recent days.
For context, Musk made his support for Trump official over the weekend with a public endorsement on X following the shooting at the former president’s rally in Pennsylvania. It is also revealed that the billionaire had donated a sizable amount to a Trump Super PAC in support of his re-election come November.
Now, it appears X, the social media platform once known as Twitter (RIP) and owned by Musk, is aligning with Musk’s support. This week, users have noticed a flurry of changes to their X feeds, namely the appearance of custom icons alongside pro-Trump hashtags. If you were to use the #MAGA, for example, a small photo of Trump raising his fist (you know the one) automatically appears next to the post.
Elsewhere, American flags appear when the #Trump2024 hashtag is used, and even more American flags begin raining down the screen when navigating that particular hashtag page. This is notable because it marks a first for the social media platform. While it has employed similar features for Apple promotions and bipartisan events like Election Day, X has never shown emoji-fuelled support for an individual candidate.
President Joe Biden is enjoying no such features, and it’s hard not to think of the raining Trump’s on X as an example of Musk’s favoritism, especially considering his recent endorsement. Users have flocked to X — probably with umbrellas to avoid the Trump rainstorm — to express their thoughts, with some labelling the pro-Trump features as “tacky” and describing Musk as a “pathetic groveling sellout.”
It’s worth noting that X has since confirmed that the pro-Trump features were part of a paid promotion by the Trump campaign (a campaign which Musk just donated to, anyway). While their relationship has been somewhat rocky (like any good romcom), all of it seems to point to a billionaire and former president love story (fine, I’ll watch it).
It doesn’t help matters that in 2023, a hearing of the House Committee on Oversight found that X and other social platforms had bent and broken their rules to favor Trump followers. That hearing was initially launched to investigate instances in which X had supported Biden, but it ended up finding the opposite.
Not even Nora Ephron or Richard Curtis could craft this kind of love story.