Ros Atkins’ fascinating analysis of ’24 hours on Elon Musk’s Twitter timeline’ is the most eye-opening and important 3 minutes you’ll watch today

John Plunkett. Updated January 13th, 2025

You’ll be familiar with the work of the BBC’s estimable Ros Atkins, who takes big and complex news stories and distills them into bite-sized – well, meal-sized – videos which cut through the nonsense to tell you exactly what is going on.

And this is one of his best, a three-minute take on ’24 hours on Elon Musk’s Twitter timeline’ and it’s an eye-opening and important take on one of world’s richest and most influential and entirely unelected (obviously) people.

Elon Musk has had a lot to say about the grooming gangs scandal. We looked at 24 hours on Musk’s X timeline and found a range of false and misleading information being amplified. Produced by Catherine Karelli, Shayan Sardarizadeh and Jake Horton. Graphics by Jacqueline Galvin. pic.twitter.com/crfrt4cmWS

— Ros Atkins (@BBCRosAtkins) January 11, 2025

Required watching, especially for anyone you might know with a fondness for anything Musk.

And here are just a few of the many responses it prompted.

How many falsehoods can @elonmusk fit into a 24 hour period? The ever impressive @BBCRosAtkins tries to find out…. https://t.co/IwOSGiJbE0

— Rory Stewart (@RoryStewartUK) January 12, 2025

This is public service broadcasting at its best, unbiased, factual, calm, brave. https://t.co/8WEve4oZjs

— David Yelland (@davidyelland) January 12, 2025

If you’re concerned about irresponsible, even malevolent, foreign interference in UK politics, & you really should be, this short video is well worth watching. https://t.co/RiQ4aDcx7m

— Matt Bishop ️‍ (@TheBishF1) January 12, 2025

Has @elonmusk responded to this yet? If not, we all know why. https://t.co/9CDlZPmkP4

— Tom Baldwin (@TomBaldwin66) January 12, 2025

Brilliant reporting. https://t.co/OeZpKZDL3K

— á ’ Global News (@ConsumerSOS) January 12, 2025

When community notes fail to fact check @elonmusk properly you can count on @BBCRosAtkins to do a wonderful job. https://t.co/2zghtP02CA

— Divyang Shah (@DShahTR) January 11, 2025

Absolutely everyone should watch this clip-it is @BBCNews at is very best
Thank you @BBCRosAtkins for leading on this. https://t.co/IBaE54vWl0

— Pepe Di’Iasio (@pepediiasio) January 12, 2025

Just in the interests of balance and all that, there were also lots of replies like this.

If you and you fellow jounalist had put half of the effort doing this in exposing child rapists instead maybe he would not need to be exposing it.

— Pepetideo (@pepetideo) January 11, 2025

Which, you might think, only reinforces the point of the original video.

Follow @BBCRosAtkins here!

Brilliantly done by @BBCRosAtkins

A firehouse of demonstrable lies and far-right disinformation to 200 million people from the world’s richest man and top adviser to Trump. We are in dangerous, uncharted waters. https://t.co/qbmypOduUe

— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) January 11, 2025

Source @BBCRosAtkins