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One-sentence summary:
Elon Musk’s promotion of misleading online conspiracy theories through the so-called “Twitter Files” has now influenced real government policy under Donald Trump, leading to the dismantling of federal institutions based on viral misinformation.
Renée DiResta’s article outlines how Elon Musk’s online conspiracy-fueled narratives, which began with the “Twitter Files,” have now expanded into a full-scale influence operation within the U.S. government under Donald Trump’s second administration. After purchasing Twitter in 2022, Musk promoted a series of misleading claims that framed content moderation and routine platform operations as deep-state censorship against conservatives. Now in charge of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)-a meme-referencing agency created by Trump-Musk has weaponized these tactics against real government institutions.
The article details how Musk uses viral posts on X (formerly Twitter) to misrepresent public data, claiming fraud or corruption within agencies like Social Security and USAID. Examples include false accusations that Social Security payments were going to Ukraine and that USAID funded condom purchases for Hamas. These stories, though based on publicly available or misunderstood data, gain traction via Musk’s online megaphone and are amplified by influencers, sparking widespread public outrage and political action. Despite being quickly debunked, these narratives are used as justifications for policy changes, program cuts, and attacks on civil servants.
DiResta explains how the same figures who pushed the Twitter Files are now misleadingly analyzing government spending databases, portraying mundane line items as nefarious secrets. This cycle of selective disclosure, viral misinformation, and government action has created a dangerous feedback loop that undermines institutional credibility and disrupts necessary functions. Musk’s framing of these “revelations” as scandals has turned governance into a performative spectacle, eroding the ability of agencies to function and casting reformable inefficiencies as deep conspiracies.
Ultimately, DiResta argues that this isn’t a quest for transparency but a political strategy aimed at discrediting and disabling the federal government. The end result is not increased efficiency, but a growing incapacity to govern, driven by a fringe internet ideology that now holds real power.
DiResta, Renée. “The ‘Twitter Files’ Took Over the Government.” The Atlantic, 23 Mar. 2025, www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/03/disinformation-online-doge-policy/682134.
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https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/03/disinformation-online-doge-policy/682134/?gift=-RYyyhoVwMCBPkXbjlfICswsOKMxSPtJ8a4yeDz9ut4&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
Key takeaways:
- Elon Musk’s conspiracy-driven Twitter Files tactics have entered the U.S. government via his leadership of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
- Misinterpretations of public data are fueling viral misinformation campaigns that justify dismantling parts of the federal government.
- Influencers on X amplify false claims, often based on out-of-context or misunderstood government records.
- The narrative framing discredits civil servants and programs, while pushing performative outrage as a basis for real policy decisions.
- The approach undermines authentic governance, leading to confusion, defunded agencies, and weakened public trust.
- The original intent of the Twitter Files was not reform, but delegitimization of institutions and centralized authority.
Most important quotations:
- “Internet fantasies have become a sufficient pretext for crippling the government.”
- “Musk’s interventions in public policy are governed by the same logic he used in 2022 when publicizing the so-called Twitter Files.”
- “The goal of the Twitter Files-and now the Government Files-was never to provide authentic transparency or deliver reform; it was to discredit organizations and their leaders.”
- “Musk and his allies are the government now.”
- “Americans will face a problem far worse than bureaucratic inefficiency: government incapacity-the deliberate dismantling of the ability to govern at all.”
Word count of generated summary: 678
Word count of supplied input: 1,899
Model version: GPT-4
Custom GPT name: Summarizer 2