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A group of white men raised $4 million for Kamala Harris. Hours later, their X account was suspended.

Theo

Social media platform X has suspended an account that recently raised more than US$4 million (AUD$6.1 million) for Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign.

White Dudes 4 Harris held a three-and-a-half-hour Zoom call on Monday to raise funds for Vice President Kamala Harris, who will likely be the Democratic nominee to run against Republican candidate and former President Donald Trump.

During this time, more than 180,000 people joined the call and donated millions of dollars to Harris’ presidential campaign.

But since the call and the huge success of the fundraiser, the account of White Dudes for Harris X (formerly Twitter) has been blocked. Participants and organizers of the event accuse X owner Elon Musk of “real election interference.”

Here’s what you need to know.

What is White Dudes 4 Harris?

The virtual fundraiser organized by activist Ross Morales Rocketto does exactly what its name promises: It calls on white men in the USA to support and vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.

Since President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race last week and endorsed his vice president, several Zoom calls have been organized to raise money for her campaign – mostly from Black women, Hispanic women, the LGBTQIA+ community and other underrepresented groups. Last week, the network’s #WinWithBlackWomen Zoom call attracted about 90,000 participants.

Rocketto wanted to do the same to the white men of America.

“We know that the silent majority of white men are not MAGA (Trump) supporters,” Rocketto said at the start of the Zoom call. “We created this space to listen.”

At the online event “White Dudes 4 Harris,” both celebrities and politicians – all men and almost all white (with the exception of Working Families Party national director Maurice Mitchell) – gathered to support Harris.

Singer Josh Groban, actor Jeff Bridges, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, and many other well-known “white guys” spoke to the tens of thousands of attendees and donors, explaining why they should vote for Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.

Even Mark Hamill, best known as Luke Skywalker in The Star Wars franchise, jumped on the call. In fact, economics professor Scott Galloway pledged to donate $50,000 so Hamill could say, “I’m Luke Skywalker, I’m here to save you.” And he did!

In total, around 180,000 white men took part in the appeal and made multiple donations, and after three and a half hours, White Dudes 4 Harris had raised more than $4 million ($6.1 million AUD).

What happened?

Within hours of the Zoom call ending, the organization’s X account, @dudes4harris, was suspended by X.

“Your account, dudes4harris, has been suspended due to a user report for violating X’s rules,” said a message from X to the account. “Specifically, for violating our ban evasion rules.”

Organizer Ross Morales Rocketto re-shared the message on his own X account.

“Seems like Elon Musk is a little scared,” Rocketto wrote.

Mike Nellis, who is apparently involved in organizing White Dudes 4 Harris, also posted the message.

“We scared Elon Musk and Donald J. Trump Jr. so bad tonight that they locked our account and won’t let us back in,” Nellis wrote on his X account.

“These guys are scared of the success we had tonight, but we’re not going to give up.”

The hashtag #WhiteDudes4Harris has been posted on X more than 56,000 times (at the time of publication) and is currently trending on the platform. Several people have condemned X and Musk for this move.

“This is real election interference!” wrote one person.

“White guys for #Project2025 – was that quite a trigger?” said another.

Organizers of White Dudes 4 Harris said they would announce their next steps on Tuesday.

“More coming tomorrow (unless they close my account too!),” wrote Mike Nellis.

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