Politico reports:

The Jeffrey Epstein conspiracy saga is blowing up in the White House’s face — and social-media experts say that Elon Musk’s remake of X helped light the fuse.

Conspiracy theories about Epstein, and the Trump administration’s supposed complicity in silencing them, are starting to split MAGA’s unruly factions and turn part of the movement against the president. (For those not following closely: The Department of Justice and FBI issued a joint report last week claiming that Epstein did not have an “incriminating ‘client list’” of powerful individuals whom he introduced to exploited minors — a finding that defied the hopes of far-right Epstein truthers who President Donald Trump and his allies had been encouraging.)

It was Musk himself who wrenched the Epstein affair back into public consciousness during his first open spat with Trump in June. In a now-deleted X post, Musk wrote, “@realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public.” Trump has not been officially accused of any wrongdoing connected to Epstein.

But Musk bears a deeper responsibility for the mess as well, say experts in online speech — and for whatever damage it inflicts on Trump’s coalition. A huge amount of the infighting has unfurled on X, from Musk’s initial accusations to far-right activist Laura Loomer’s attacks on Attorney General Pam Bondi, to Infowars founder Alex Jones raging at “deep state” puppet masters in the administration.

“X is really ground zero for a lot of what’s going on,” Joan Donovan, a Boston University professor who studies misinformation, told POLITICO. She added, “It acts as a constant headache for powerful politicians and the mega-rich that still use the platform.”

This would have been unthinkable on Twitter before Musk’s reign, when a team of content moderators tried to tamp down on volatile conspiracy theories by kicking off many of the users who are now raising a ruckus. [Continue reading…]