Flashback: Inside Elon Musk’s Mounting Political and Cultural Influence

In the days since Donald Trump was elected the 47th U.S. president, by his side has been one of his campaign’s most powerful backers: Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, and the owner of X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

What shaped Musk’s rise to political prominence and alliance with the president-elect?

In the October 2023 documentary Elon Musk’s Twitter Takeover, FRONTLINE examined the shift of Musk’s political ideology during the COVID pandemic and his purchase of the platform now named X. The film traced how he cast himself as a champion for free speech and an opponent of what he calls the “woke mind virus,” and his mounting influence on U.S. politics, speech and culture:

Following Trump’s election win, the president-elect tapped Musk to head an initiative focused on government efficiency along with fellow entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, and Musk has reportedly been sitting in on phone calls and meetings as Trump’s transition back to the Oval Office takes shape.

With Musk now in a position to exert influence at the highest levels of government, the documentary is a profound investigation of how he has remade X in his own image, and the implications for the United States and the world.

From James Jacoby and Anya Bourg — the award-winning team behind Amazon Empire and The Facebook Dilemma — the documentary also explores Twitter’s relationship with the U.S. government, a Congressional investigation into the platform’s treatment of conservative voices, seemingly contradictory decisions by Musk about free speech, and allegations that Musk used the platform to target his perceived enemies.

Watch Elon Musk’s Twitter Takeover at pbs.org/frontline, in the PBS App, on FRONTLINE’s YouTube channel and on the PBS Documentaries Prime Video channel.