Elon Musk accused Reuters of being involved in “large scale social deception,” which is quite hypocritical considering that the accusation was a lie he was knowingly spreading on X as his latest attempt to deceive the American people.
Ever since Musk overtook Twitter, he has primarily turned it into a right-wing propaganda site and allowed misinformation to spread like wildfire. However, his lies and conspiracies have become even more dangerous now that Donald Trump has given him free rein over the government. One of his first moves was to drive the dismantling of USAID, which has caused widespread chaos, waste, and loss of life with an aggressive and unnecessary stop-work order. Instead of explaining to the American people why he’s unconstitutionally trying to dissolve a government department, he has fed them numerous blatant lies about USAID.
As the one inside the government with access to USAID’s classified information, Musk should have no issue telling Americans where its funds are going. Hence, it’s quite strange that he began telling absurd lies, such as that USAID sent $50 million worth of condoms to Gaza, that it spent millions funding Politico, and that it funded celebrity trips to Ukraine. Even after admitting he lied about the Gaza story, he has continued spreading misinformation. His latest false claim was that USAID paid Reuters to foster “large scale social deception.”
Elon Musk is exposed for lying … again
Recently, Musk took to X with a hysterical post claiming the U.S. government paid Reuters, the news agency company, millions of dollars to cause “large scale social deception.” He shared a picture of the purchase order that he claims proves the government paid for “Active Social Engineering Defense (ASED)” and “Large-Scale Social Deception (LSSD).” Musk wrote, “That is literally what it says on the purchase order! They’re a total scam. Just wow.”
Of course, one only needs to glance briefly at the purchase order to see that the payment hasn’t even been made to Reuters, the media outlet. It clearly states that it was made to Thomas Reuters Special Services LLC, a legal firm that operates separately from the media outlet. Not only that, but it also reveals that the Trump administration made the payment in 2018. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) funded the contract to study “large scale social deception” as part of its ASED program, designed to identify and stop social engineering attacks. Of course, it’s far more sensational to claim that a media outlet colluded with the government to cause widespread deception. MAGAs instantly ate up the lie and, like clockwork, Trump was on TruthSocial raging that the media outlet Reuters needed to give him back the money.
X user Mikael Nilsson provided an excellent breakdown of Musk’s lies and also questioned if perhaps Musk wanted to make America vulnerable to cyberattacks from other countries by going after ASED. He asked, “Is it because that is the kind of attacks that Iran, China, and Russia are targeting the Western democracies with? Does Musk want the US to be vulnerable to such large scale deception?” Evidence that this is what Musk wants is further backed by the fact he is launching his own “large scale social deception” through X. Nilsson warns, “He is knowingly spreading lies about what the US government is funding.”
It doesn’t get any more hypocritical than accusing a media outlet of social deception in a social media post that was very likely intentionally made for the sole purpose of deception. Needless to say, nothing Musk says about where taxpayer dollars are going or why he’s shutting down departments and cutting funds can be trusted. Hence, Americans do not actually know why he’s going after these departments and programs, which is frightening, especially when he starts going after defense programs like ASED.
Published: Feb 13, 2025 03:46 pm