A leftist organization known for targeting right-leaning media outlets has set its partisan sights on a new target: Elon Musk.
Leaked memos from the Center for Countering Digital Hate—an organization notorious for targeting the MRC in 2021—revealed that one of its top priorities was to "Kill Musk’s Twitter," according to independent journalists Paul D. Thacker and Matt Taibbi.
CCDH is a radical organization that targets groups it labels as spreading "online hate" and "disinformation” (or in other words, speech it disagrees with). The decision to target Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) came less than two years after the tech mogul vowed to uphold the First Amendment on the platform.
The leaked CCDH memos—published Tuesday in The DisInformation Chronicle substack—outlined monthly and annual goals, along with secondary priorities, in bulleted lists from March to October 2024.
Among the targets was “Musk’s Twitter,” in addition to seeking to “Trigger EU and UK regulatory action.” These efforts, Thacker and Taibbi suggested, put CCDH’s 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status at risk.
In response, Musk labeled CCDH "a criminal organization" and called their targeting an act of "war." CCDH joins a growing list of leftist groups and foreign governments attacking Musk since his purchase of Twitter in 2022.
This is war https://t.co/tesncwEoXE
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 22, 2024
Despite leftist criticism, Musk has consistently advocated for unrestricted free speech within legal limits on social media. This stance has appeared to alarm Democratic lawmakers and leftist groups, who have routinely argued that free speech and the First Amendment pose a threat to democracy.
The panic has reached such heights that it's now a central issue in the 2024 election, with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton even suggesting that Americans should face criminal and civil penalties for misspeaking.
Taibbi and Thacker revealed that CCDH, led by its founder Morgan McSweeney, is closely linked to Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, where McSweeney serves as a campaign advisor.
Coincidentally, Musk has been a vocal supporter of Harris’s opponent, former President Donald Trump, going so far as to join him on several campaign rallies.
Meanwhile, the Biden-Harris administration has launched a full-fledged assault against Musk-owned companies, reported The New York Times. The probes span multiple agencies, including Transportation, Justice, Labor, Interior and Agriculture.
CCDH’s influence extended beyond the presidential campaign, seemingly working with Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) to push legislation targeting so-called “misinformation."
In 2021, the infamous company attacked MRC, among others, labeling it part of a “Toxic Ten” responsible for spreading so-called climate change denialism. In another report, CCDH targeted 12 popular internet personalities, accusing them of spreading disinformation about COVID-19.
In response, MRC President Brent Bozell branded CCDH a “Digital brownshirt,” referencing the Nazi Party's paramilitary force from the 1920s.
Calling for more biased fact-checks as a way of silencing scientific debate is insane. This is another typical left wing cancel culture attempt borne out of anti-conservative bigotry.
— Brent Bozell (@BrentBozell) November 2, 2021
