Elon Musk was excited when Joe Biden chose platform X to post a notice to stop running for president, instead of holding a press conference in the Oval Office.
After Biden's announcement on the morning of July 22 (Hanoi time), Elon Musk boasted on X that even "the White House assistant knew the news thanks to X", attracting 29 million views and 177 thousand likes. Meanwhile, Mr. Biden's article had more than 85 million views and 783 thousand likes after 9 hours of posting.
"We all heard the news through social network X. None of us understood what was going on," Politico quoted a US congressman as saying.
The US President also posted two other posts on X calling for support for Vice President Kamala Harris and reviewing America's achievements during his time as President. Mr. Biden's "Letter to the American People" attracted more than 300 million views within 9 hours. He also shared the same announcement on Instagram and Facebook and received a high amount of interaction.
WSJ commented that President Biden has ignored traditional media, showing a modern approach. Prioritizing social media over formal Oval Office speeches signals a new era of political communication.
"Social networks are reshaping the presidential speech stage. They have become the main means of communication for American voters in the most chaotic election cycle of modern times," this site commented.
"Mass media increasingly plays a role in the news war," said Katie Harbath, Facebook's former director of public policy and now director of global affairs at consulting firm Duco Experts. Even though there are many problems, this is an effective way to bring news to the most people, in the fastest way possible."
Previously, Donald Trump also released his first message after being assassinated on the social network Truth Social. This is also where he announced vice presidential candidate JD Vance.
CNN journalist Wolf Blitzer assessed that making the announcement on social networks was a major turning point. Meanwhile, Musk urged leaders to "post directly" messages on X. "It may be risky, but this is the truth and people like honesty," he wrote.
Meanwhile, Linda Yaccarino, CEO X, calls the platform "where history happens." However, some people objected because Mr. Biden also posted similar messages on Instagram and Facebook. In addition, social networks also have unwanted impacts on politics and the upcoming presidential election. One of the issues that worries experts is that conspiracy theories and unverified news can spread rapidly on the Internet, thereby seriously affecting the election results.