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A surprise hit, or almost. To displace the debate between the Republican candidates for the US presidency for 2024 but also to reinvigorate the fate of the social media previously known as Twitter, now X. The reason is evident in the recipe of the video: Donald Trump, the controversial former US president, asks former Fox News host Tucker Carlson to be interviewed in a video to be posted on Elon Musk’s platform a few minutes before the start of the first presidential debate between Republican candidates in Milwaukee, effectively stealing the show.
Donald Trump interviewed on Twitter, now X
The interviewer’s choice is not accidental: Carlson is the former superstar of FoxNews, a TV network that for years flirted with the New York tycoon’s “conspiracy theorist” front and from which it gradually freed itself; until last April’s torpedoing of her star, Carlson, and the closing of a contract worth 45 million dollars a year (plus 5 in bonuses).
Views boom
A recipe that generated 46 minutes and 12 seconds of conversation seen in the first 12 hours about 180 million times, obviously not all in the US but the number is significant because it corresponds to over half of the US population. Enough, perhaps, to revive the fortunes of X, the platform that Musk has undergone in recent months to various changes of course not always appreciated by advertisers: last June sources inside the platform had revealed to the media how advertising investments had dropped in the last five weeks by 59%. A trend confirmed by Musk himself who, speaking of a halving of advertising revenue, had announced a diet at the expense of the company. Result: a reduction of the market capitalization of two thirds and flight of some large institutional investors such as Fidelity, one of the world leaders in asset management.
Musk e Trump
The flirtation between Musk and Trump is not a surprise: the South African tycoon was prompt in re-admitting the former president to Twitter, previously banned by the previous management after the assault on Capitol Hill, who however had declined the invitation to continue with the project of its “Truth” platform. Musk is having more than one difficulty in changing the platform model: no more microblogging social networks, a fast and immediate source of information, up to the change of the name (now X), of the logo (via the bird) and, above all, of the codes of the algorithms that regulate the distribution of contents. With the effect of reducing the scope of informative and journalistic content and, in general, of all the links that lead off the platform (as happens with other social media, on the other hand).
And Twitter at X
Many have underlined how X has distanced itself from the anti-fake news initiatives that platforms such as Meta have put in place in recent years, to reduce the spread of false information on its platform. It is hardly necessary to recall the reputational damages received by Meta precisely for the case of Cambidge Analityca, the company led by Steve Bannon, Trump’s spin doctor in the 2016 elections, protagonist of the dissemination of numerous false information and the creation of a “conspiracy theorist” cultural substrate ” which captured the attention of millions of Americans and non-Americans.