Survey: X Postings From Republicans Have Tripled

Elon Musk has frequently used X (formerly Twitter), the social media site he owns, to fuel doubts about the security of the upcoming presidential election, according to a report from CBS News. Researchers at CBS found that among hundreds of posts by Musk about election security this year, 55% either contain misleading or false statements, or amplify posts that do this.

This comes at a time when 65% of U.S. X users say getting news is a reason they use the platform, according to a 2024 Pew Research Center survey. And 59% of X users cite keeping up with politics as a reason for using it. At the same time, the vast majority of Americans who regularly get news on X say they at least sometimes see news there that seems inaccurate, including 37% who see this extremely or fairly often.

Today, views of X are more positive than negative. About four-in-ten X users (38%) say it’s mostly good for democracy, 27% say it’s mostly bad, and 34% say it has no impact. That’s an uptick of 6 percentage points in the share who say it’s mostly good from last year.

GOP users’ views of X have changed dramatically in the past three years. The share of Republican users who see X as mostly good for democracy has roughly tripled from 17% in 2021 to 53% today. This includes a 10-point rise in just the past year (from 43% to 53%). (Throughout this report, Democratic and Republican users include independents who lean toward each party.)

Democratic X users’ views are trending negative. The share of Democratic users who see it as mostly bad for democracy has risen 11 points since 2021, to 39% today.

Partisans hold opposing views of X. Republican X users are far more likely than Democratic users to see it as mostly good for democracy (53% vs. 26%). In contrast, Democratic users are three times as likely as their GOP counterparts to see it as mostly bad (39% vs. 13%).