Ryan Mac

Roughly 30 minutes after Donald Trump was shot, Elon Musk backed his bid for the White House. Musk entered uncharted territory. He broke with tradition set by the leaders of other major social media firms, none of whom have endorsed a presidential candidate.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, signed off in August 2021 on a new initiative code-named Project Amplify. The effort, which was hatched at an internal meeting months before in January, had a specific purpose: to use Facebook’s News Feed, the site’s most important digital real estate, to show people positive stories about the social network. The idea was that pushing pro-Facebook news items — some of them written by the company — would improve its image in the eyes of its users.