Topline
The four most-liked posts on X this year all came from the site’s billionaire owner Elon Musk and all were about President-elect Donald Trump, highlighting how Musk leveraged his social media platform to boost Trump, who he also backed financially in the election.
X Owner Elon Musk's made the most liked post on his social media platform and it was about ... [+]
Key Facts
The most-liked X post of the year is an Associated Press photo posted by Musk showing a bloodied Trump raising his fist after a failed assassination attempt against the then-GOP candidate in Pennsylvania in July; the post garnered more than 3.4 million “likes” on X and features no text.
That post image is also Musk’s second most-liked post on X of all time, behind only a joke he made about buying Coca-Cola in 2022; it is also the platform’s seventh most-liked post overall.
Musk’s second most-liked post—with 2.6 million “likes”—was made shortly before the election was called for Trump and features an image of the President-elect talking to Musk and UFC President Dana White with the text “The future is gonna be so [lit].”
The third most-liked post, gaining 2.4 million likes, was made on Nov. 6 and references Trump’s election win with a photo of Musk saluting an American flag and the text “It is morning in America again.”
Musk’s tweet showing a video of Trump raising his fist as he publicly endorsed his candidacy for the first time garnered 2.3 million, becoming the platform’s fourth most-liked post of the year.
Data on the most liked posts was collected using X’s “advanced search” function and filtering for posts with more than a million likes between January and December 2024.
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What Is Trump’s Most-Liked X Post Of 2024?
Although the president-elect primarily posts on his own Truth Social platform, he has occasionally tweeted from his X account this year. His most-liked tweet, by far, is a photo of him wearing an apron and waving from a McDonald’s drive-thru. The post, which does not feature any text, has racked up 1.4 million likes so far.
Key Background
After briefly appearing to back Florida Gov. Ron Desantis’ candidacy, Musk emerged as Trump’s most vocal supporter and biggest financial backer in the 2024 presidential election. Musk’s fourth most-liked tweet this year was the first time Musk publicly endorsed Trump’s candidacy. According to Federal Election Commission filings, Musk poured more than $200 million to back Trump’s candidacy before election day. The contributions include around $193 million donated to his pro-Trump America PAC before election day and another $20.5 million to a PAC that endorsed Trump on abortion issues. Musk also campaigned for Trump in key swing states in the final few weeks before election day and even appeared alongside him at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania—the site of the first assassination attempt against the President-elect. Since Trump’s victory, Musk has emerged as one of the most influential figures in the president-elect’s orbit and has been tapped to co-lead the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with a mandate to slash government spending. Musk’s growing influence was apparent last week when he helped kill a congressional spending bill by attacking it on X. Trump’s critics have since tried to mock the president-elect by referring to the X owner and billionaire as “President Musk.”
Surprising Fact
Although Musk's posts racked up the most likes, YouTuber Mr. Beast made the most retweeted post of the year in January—which also holds the title of the most retweeted post of all time. In the post, the Youtuber, whose real name is James Donaldson, said he would give away $25,000 to 10 randomly picked people who “repost this and follow me.” The post quickly gained more than 3.9 million retweets, the most ever, but the number has since dropped to 3.4 million—presumably as several people deleted their retweets after the giveaway deadline ended.
Tangent
While Musk’s top tweets this year were linked to the election, the most-liked election-related tweet is held by President Joe Biden. Biden’s January 20, 2021, post has 3.6 million likes and reads: “It's a new day in America.”
Contra
As his tweets have racked up massive engagement, Musk has come under scrutiny for reportedly tweaking the platform’s algorithm to boost his visibility. Last year, Platformer reported that Musk demanded major changes to X’s algorithms after a Super Bowl post made by President Joe Biden garnered significantly more engagement than his. Musk even appeared to allude to this with a meme post showing one woman labeled “Elon’s tweets” force-feeding milk to a woman labeled “Twitter”.
Big Number
186%. That is the percentage by which the like count on Musk’s posts increased between July 13, when he endorsed Trump, and November 1, according to a study conducted by Australian researchers. However, it is unclear if this is simply the result of the election season driving more engagement as other prominent political accounts also saw their like count bump up by 130%. An investigation by the Washington Post found that, between July and October of this year, tweets by Republican leaders were almost five times more likely to go viral—i.e. garner more than 20 million views—compared to Democrats.
