At the urging of Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas (D-Hollister), most of the Democrats in the California Assembly are leaving the social media platform of billionaire Elon Musk, a loyalist of President Trump.
Rivas said Thursday that 58 of the Assembly’s 60 Democrats will stop, or have already stopped, sharing information and interacting with constituents through their official government accounts on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Rivas said the exodus was driven by concerns over the company’s failure to address a surge of misinformation, fake accounts, and racist, sexist and antisemitic posts.
“Hate speech is everywhere on X, the company has no accountability, and the flood of misinformation from fake accounts is just that — fake,” Rivas said in a statement. “I don’t think taxpayer resources should go to X.”
Rivas’ office characterized the exodus as one of the single largest departures of elected officials from X.
The Democrats’ decision follows Musk’s
embrace of Trump and recent work to
gut the federal workforce through his Department of Government Efficiency.
Assembly Republican Leader James Gallagher of Yuba City said in an interview that Democrats were making a mistake by backing away from an “important part of the public square.”
Democrats have criticized Republican members of Congress for not holding in-person town halls, which have become
forums for venting against Musk, Trump and cuts to the federal workforce. Leveling that criticism “at the same time that you’re vacating the space where a lot of conversations are happening — I think that’s a bit hypocritical,” Gallagher said.
When Democrats complain about misinformation and hate speech, Gallagher said, they often mean that “they don’t like the opinions that are being expressed.” Where there is hate speech on X, he said, “I think it gets called out.”
A Rivas spokesman said the departure was not a retreat from disagreement, but rather a decision to stop supporting a platform “overtaken by harmful disinformation, hate speech, antisemitism and racism, and that’s run by someone who is promoting this hateful rhetoric.”
His office said Democrats will continue to share information on other social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and TikTok.
“Democracy depends on impartial information, not the shifting whims of one billionaire,” Rivas said.
Assembly Majority Leader Cecilia Aguiar-Curry (D-Winters), Rivas’ top lieutenant, said Musk is not investing in content moderation, leading to “rampant misinformation” that “endangers our friends and neighbors during emergencies.”
“It is irresponsible to continue to encourage our constituents to seek reliable public safety info on X,” Aguiar-Curry said.
Assemblymember Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park) left X more than a year ago. He said
at the time that he took a short break after Musk reactivated the account of Sandy Hook conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, then discovered that he didn’t miss the platform “at all.”
Assemblymember Tina McKinnor (D-Hawthorne) told her followers in a video in February that she was leaving the platform because it had grown “
very hateful, very mean” and was rife with misinformation.
In California’s other chamber, state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) left X last month, citing “
escalating negative changes,” including an uptick in extremist content, spam posts and “bizarre changes to the algorithm,” which he said had affected engagement with posts about his work. San Diego-area Sen. Akilah Weber Pierson (D-La Mesa) left X in December.
California’s lawmakers are not deleting their accounts, so their old posts will remain available.
Rivas’ office said that’s due in part to prevent people from impersonating elected officials: If a user deletes their X account, the username can be claimed by someone else
30 days later.
