Elon Musk has repeatedly promoted posts on his X Twitter account from a right-wing media outlet that allegedly published Russian propaganda for money.
On September 4, the U.S. Department of Justice filed loud accusation. The DOJ alleges that Russian state-owned RT secretly provided about $10 million to a Tennessee-based media network that created propaganda videos and paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to several right-wing influencers, as evidenced by its digital footprint.
The indictment does not mention the name of the company that received the money, but numerous American media outlets report that the details point to Tenet Media. Musk, who is deeply immersed in conspiratorial right-wing views, has repeatedly directly referenced and shared Tenet Media content, as well as publications created and published by influencers who «collaborated» with Tenet for money.
The founders of Tenet were also not named in the indictment — they are a couple of conservative influencers, Lauren Chen and Liam Donovan. Chen, who has a large following on social media, hosted a show on Glenn Beck’s Blaze TV until she was dismissed after being charged. She is also the co-founder of Turning Point USA, a political organization «Christian nationalists» that focuses on promoting conservative ideas among teens and students.
According to the Justice Department, the couple knew that they were receiving money from Russian citizens: they worked directly with two Russian RT employees, but deliberately failed to report this relationship to the US government, as required by US law.
Tenet’s founders are also accused of actively working to hide their relationship with Russia and RT from the right-wing influencers they hired, who together have millions of followers on X, Instagram, YouTube, and other platforms Moreover, according to the indictment, the RT employees from whom Chen and Donovan received checks were involved in the editorial process of much of Tenet’s content.
Created under the slogan «here are the fearless voices», the content created and distributed by Tenet and a group of influencers ranges from general rants against the wake-up call, culture war to openly anti-Ukrainian messages focused on the financing of the war in Ukraine by the United States and the West. Elon Musk repeatedly retweeted and responded to messages from Tenet itself, as well as its influencers, including Tim Poole, Benny Johnson, and Lauren Southern.
The billionaire indirectly commented on the Department of Justice’s accusations by answering «yes» to post conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, who argued that the influencers paid by Tenet were not guilty because of their ignorance of Russian involvement — Musk responded «Yes». Some of Tenet’s content creators, including Poole and Johnson, claim that they were the real victims and speak of their own ignorance of the Russian connections.
According to the indictment, At least two of the influencers knew that Tenet’s investments came from a fictitious European banker named Eduard Grigoryan. When one of the experts asked for information about Grigoryan, he was directed to the LinkedIn page of a company called Viewpoint Productions. As he notes Wired, the page was clearly fake: it contained little information and many spelling mistakes.
Those involved in spreading Russian propaganda received really big money. According to the indictment, one of the influential people was paid $400,000 a month (excluding «bonuses») for creating only four videos a week. According to the Ministry of Justice, it may be true that these influencers were not aware of the funds coming from a hostile state. But they were also not very interested in the origin of the money.
Source: Futurism
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