A conspiracy theory circulating online claims that billionaire Elon Musk manipulated the 2024 election to benefit President-elect Donald Trump using his Starlink satellite network.
Left-leaning theorists assert that Starlink, SpaceX’s global satellite internet service, was linked to the voting machine supply chain to impact vote counts.
In contrast to the 2020 election, where right-wing conspiracy theories threatened a peaceful power transition, no prominent Democratic figures like Kamala Harris or Joe Biden have fueled these claims after their 2024 loss.
One popular TikTok video by @etheria77 suggests that “California and other swing states were able to use Starlink to count ballots,” amplified on X, garnering 1.6 million views.
An additional X user, @AnAct4Progress, bolstered this claim with a clip of Joe Rogan alleging that Musk knew of Trump’s victory hours before official results were announced.
These theories have been widely debunked. Voting machines, according to the Associated Press, are rarely internet-connected.
Some machines use secure, private networks to transmit unofficial results after votes are counted and memory cards removed.
Chip Trowbridge, CTO of voting system manufacturer Clear Ballot, affirmed that these systems lack Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or any external network connectivity.
The 2020 election saw a wave of debunked claims around voting machines, leading to investigations that confirmed the integrity of the results.
In 2023, Fox News paid $787 million to Dominion Voting Systems to settle a defamation suit over these allegations.
Earlier this year, Musk publicly supported Trump’s candidacy, contributed millions to pro-Trump super PACs, and participated in campaign rallies.
During the campaign, Musk questioned the reliability of voting machines, stating at a Pennsylvania town hall, “The last thing I would do is trust a computer program; it’s too easy to hack.”
