Dylan Hadler-Godet works on the government’s supervision project, a non-party surveillance group focused on reducing bureaucratic waste. He is also blind. So, when he criticized the Elon Musk service in the United States in a testimony to the Capitol Hill last week, Musk unleashed online Hedtler-Gaudette, described as “surreal” in his minor fanaticism.
First, Musk retailed an X publication, noting that “the blind director of the guard group funded by George Soros testifies that he did not see widespread evidence of government waste” and added two emoji laughs/crying. The tweet has collected more than 21 million views and has sparked dozens of hateful messages to the Hedtler-Gaudette account.
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“He couldn’t see s —-a perfect excuse that you couldn’t do your job,” said a poster. “The blind man cannot see fraud. You can’t make this garbage, “another writes. One person even called for posters to reach the Hedtler-Gaudette bank account.
The episode illustrates how the incomparable online range of Musk has given him a powerful tool to attack people who criticize Dodge, with a post being able to cause hundreds of blisters from his followers.
Last week, he intensified his unfounded allegations of the judge, who canceled Trump’s funding for freezing federal grants that determined the daughter of his civil servant. Musk called for the dismissal of journalists who wrote about Dodge, calling their actions “possibly criminal.” While hunting for slicing federal bureaucracy, the billionaire has diverted the names and titles of individual government officials, placing that they must be fired.
Digital rights experts say the situation has created an unprecedented imbalance in power. Musk’s large -scale online ownership of a social media platform where he can dictate the rules of moderation of content and position to head the government formation with access to private data gives him a unique ability to threaten those who question him and cool him Disagree speech.
“People are not feeling safe in this country against the government,” says Ryan Kalo, a professor of law at the University of Washington. “Because the government in the form of Elon Musk and President Trump himself will catalyze the retribution.”
Hedtler-Gaudette said Musk’s decision to ridicule blind, the 38-year-old government waste expert shows something different: “He is a basic small man,” says Hadler-Godet in an interview with The Washington Post.
Musk did not return a comment request.
Long before Musk owns X, he uses his personal account to name and ashamed people. In 2018, when journalist Erin Biba wrote that Musk had attacked scientists and reporters, the billionaire refused that he had never attacked science. He definitely attacked misleading journalism like yours. “The single remark has caused a storm of emails, tweets and publications on Instagram, writes Biba, from what she called Muskbros, many with sexually offensive remarks.
After Musk purchased Twitter in 2022 and renamed it X, the site is transformed. The billionaire cut off the majority of the X’s trust and safety team and replaced the professional check of the facts with “Community Notes”. As Musk’s account has swelled to 217 million followers, he has the strongest online megaphone in American politics – a megaphone, further enhanced by algorithms, set to prioritize his content in people’s emissions, said Joan Donovan, Journalism Assistant University.
Musk’s posts serve as a “only trigger” mechanism for his followers, Donovan said, often encouraged them to seek social media profiles, seek information about family members, release cyberattacks, submit false complaints with their employer or flood people with texts and phone calls all night.
Shortly after taking over the site, Musk falsely published that Joel Roth, the former head of trust and safety of the site, was “for the benefit of children who have access to adult internet services.” Some interpret the comment to mean Roth, is a pedophile, which drives a wave of anti -Semitic and homophobic harassment, which ultimately forces him to get out of his home, according to Roth’s congress.
After the re -election of Trump, Musk often focuses on people who meet stories popular in the president’s nationalist base.
In November, Musk retreated a publication identifying Ashley Thomas, director of climate diversification at the American Corporation for International Development Funding, asking whether taxpayers should finance their salary. “So many fake jobs,” Musk said in response to Tweet, winning more than 33 million views. His post inspired a barrage of abuse and calls for Thomas’s dismissal. “Disagree her day 1,” said a poster.
When fires in Los Angeles intensified in January, Musk accused minorities and female firefighters of not stopping the flames earlier, posting their names and photos. “Day means that people die,” Musk turns during the natural disaster.
After the Wall Street Journal reporter Catherine Long revealed that Marco Eless, one of Musk’s Doge employees, made racist comments online – encouraging Es to resign – the billionaire called her “disgusting and cruel man” and suggested that she be “fired immediately “. Ashok Sinha, a spokesman for Wall Street Journal, said in a statement that “we are standing next to our reporter and our fair and accurate reporting.”
Musk’s attacks have been having a new force since Trump took office, Kalo said. Musk is a special government official, and his Doge team has access to sensitive private data. As the owner of X, he can choose what content is allowed.
The combination, Kalo said, gives him the unique ability to deter the people he attacks from posting on social media. Calo claims that the process is a form of jaw when government participants use their authority to influence content on social media accounts.
“Now you have a literal White House employee who is on his own media platform and harasses people and threatens people,” Kalo said. “If this is not a jaw, I literally cannot imagine what this term may mean.”
Musk’s actions online can ultimately reduce the criticism he receives in the future, said Gita Johar, a professor of a business school at the University of Colombia, who specializes in consumer psychology. “People are just expecting to be attacked and do not take up positions that could make you the goal of online harassment,” Johar said.
While HedTler-Gaudette is not yet faced with physical harm because of Musk’s post, he said he was really worried about the future.
“There is power for what is happening on the Internet,” he said. “As much as I like to fire him sometimes and laugh at him, sometimes there are real consequences.”
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