Prince Harry wants the world to know he does not play when it comes to spreading misinformation, and people are speculating that he took a discrete swing at none other than the richest man in the world, Elon Musk. The Duke of Sussex was touring Colombia with wife Meghan Markle in August 2024 when he spoke at a conference about how misinformation can have real-life consequences. Shortly before it took place, riots had sprouted in the United Kingdom due to the murder of three girls, where almost 400 people were charged with violence and similar offenses. The Tesla CEO shared with his 200 million followers a post about how Prime Minister Keir Starmer was considering building detainment camps for rioters — a claim without evidence.
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Even though Musk ended up deleting the post, it could have already influenced thousands if not millions of people, which seems to be Prince Harry’s main concern. “What happens online within a matter of minutes transfers to the streets,” he said at a conference (via The Independent). “People are acting on information that isn’t true. … It comes down to all of us to be able to spot the true from the fake.”
It’s uncommon for billionaires to be as active on social media as Musk (a tweet an hour on average, according to Business Insider). Whether it’s about wanting to put cocaine back in Coca-Cola or fat-shaming Microsoft founder Bill Gates, he seems unable to keep his thoughts to himself. And the Duke of Sussex is calling specifically on those with influence to be responsible with facts. “In an ideal world, those with positions of influence would take more responsibility,” he said at the conference. “We are no longer debating facts.”
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A common pattern for the X billionaire
Elon Musk is constantly under scrutiny for sharing fake news. In the 2024 presidential election, for example, the Trump campaign donor said he didn’t trust voting machines because the “last thing [he] would do is to trust a computer program because it’s just too easy to hack,” per The Times of India. And yet … computer programs drive Teslas, and he expects people to trust them to the point of using its self-driving options. As reported by ABC News, his claims that voting machines were rigging elections in 2020 have been repeatedly debunked, yet he has never backed away from them. Not only that, but while knowingly having the account with the most followers on X, he amplifies posts from accounts like KanekoaTheGreat, a QAnon-affiliated user, and interacts frequently with conspiracy theorists like Kim Dotcom and Ian Miles Cheong.
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However, there’s another reason why it seems like Prince Harry was taking a swing at the self-proclaimed visionary: He disagrees with people being “allowed to spread lies,” per The Independent. And when Musk doesn’t spread lies himself, he sure allows them. Before his ownership, Twitter had a larger team that fought against coordinated propaganda campaigns by countries such as Russia, China, and Saudi Arabia. Musk, however, fired many of its staff. Today, with Musk as the captain, many troll farms are thriving and were active during the 2024 election cycle — after he fired the app’s election integrity team. Unsurprisingly, research by Darren Linvill et al. found that many disabled troll farms had become active again after the buyout (via BBC). Could Musk influence the Trump administration to make similar decisions now that he will be a key player in it?
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