In a well-secured, luxurious compound somewhere in the US, a billionaire is laughing. It doesn't matter that it may be a weird laugh (as a certain Democratic presidential candidate was accused of having these last few months), and it doesn't matter that ad revenues for certain social media platforms have tanked within the last two years (they have served their purpose). It doesn’t even matter which billionaire it is. What matters is next year.
In his victory speech, Donald Trump, the former 45 th and future 47 th President of the United States, took a moment out of a rhetoric attacking immigration to thank South African-born Elon Musk, occasionally the world’s richest man and most recent Republican cheerleader, noting that in him, “a new star is born”.
As Kamala Harris conceded in a speech eerily reminiscent to that of Hilary Clinton, the previous (and first) woman to stand for the USA's highest political office in 2016, Trump was declared the president-elect by political pundits, the press, and the court of public opinion. And in an election cycle like never seen before, it was the last that decided its victor, with no small help from his most recent convert.
Trump’s victory in the 2024 presidential election underscores a transformative digital campaigning landscape, particularly in contrast to Harris’s significant ad spending on traditional platforms like Google and Meta’s products. Trump’s campaign, marked by its heavy reliance on pure social media, especially X (formerly Twitter), as well as his own Truth Social platform, allowed him to engage directly with voters, bypassing traditional media filters. His strategy included unfiltered posts and collaborations with influencers on platforms like Twitch as well as mainstream podcasters, which resonated with younger audiences despite their criticisms of political messaging in gaming spaces.
