Once Musk’s Ire target is the Gen Z creator Kat Abugazale runs for Congress

When Kat Abugazalech freed herself from his job as a researcher of extremism and video producer at Media Matters last year, Elon Musk personally got into X to celebrate his misfortune.

“Karma is real,” Musk saidS

But as Abugazalech said in a video on Monday, which announces it campaign For Congress, she is not afraid to face Musk, especially like him influence on the federal government escalate.

Instead, the 26-year-old looked at the ninth neighborhood of Illinois. The current representative, 80-year-old Democrat Jan Shakovski, was first elected to Congress before Abugazale was even born.

“I have ideas that I want to press and have a big (social media) platform,” Abugazalh told TechCrunch on Monday. “I felt I didn’t want to wait for someone to do something when I could do something right now.”

Abughazaleh built his online audience through his work at Media Matters, where she became known for making videos, decoding rhetoric and inaccuracies of Fox News. But when Musk brought a case for the media Over an article on how X put ads along with pronaceist content, increasing legal costs have led the non -profit goal to fire Abughazaleh and twelve others.

Now an independent creator of social media, she has accumulated over half a million followers within platforms for her progressive political content, with her biggest audience (222,000 followers) of Tiktok.

“There is absolutely no reason to be able to afford housing, groceries and healthcare with residues of money,” she said in her campaign message. “Families must have free care for children, social security must be expanded and our irrevocable rights should not depend on who is in power.”

Abugazaleh did not expect her participation with Musk to be related to the general public. But over ten months after Musk celebrated his dismissal, ended 30,000 federal employees Now know the feeling of losing your job because of the billionaire’s machinations.

“Many people in journalism, especially with this lifestyle, go through some trial or practical mileage, dry mileage of what Trump and Musk are doing for the rest of the country,” she told TechCrunch.

“We knew what was going to happen … We were upset that we were right, but that also means that we have tools for retreating and we know what is happening and we know how to handle it.”

Tiktoker has become a political candidate

While young people are historically leaning on liberal, Gen Z voters displaced more conservative in the election last year. Abugazalech believes that this is a product of poor information from Democrats.

“I think the big problem that Democrats have is their digital strategy and people like me and people who are younger have a better understanding (on the Internet),” she said. “This is something we grew up with.”

Some critics may believe that her age is a two -edged sword, as she is young enough to have a long online print. But Abugazaleh is not worried. As she wrote To one skeptic of X, “I hope you enjoy my blog for high school in One Direction and photos of my cat.”

In the Trump era, the president literally owns a social media platform where he publishes constantly – it is no longer so taboo to show a person online.

“We have a president who publishes whatever comes to his mind at any time,” she said. “I think we’re well with just like the age of 13.”

Given her story with Musk, she does not plan to center X in her digital strategy. Before all other social media platforms, Abugazaleh gives priority to Bluezki where there are around 154,000 followersS

On Monday, for example, she posted her campaign message exclusively on Bluesky for an hour and a half before moving to other platforms.

“I really like Bluski’s policies in many things,” she said. “They hire more moderators, and many other places are not moderate or fired.”

Meta, for example, reworked their content moderation policies In January, termination of its third -party facts verification program.

Bluezky has grown to over 33 million users and even former President Barack Obama Join the Platform Over the weekend. But its population is still relatively small compared to long -standing social giants such as Instagram or X.

Nevertheless, Abughazaleh’s strategy has proven successful so far. In the first seven hours of her campaign, she raised $ 100,000 with an average of $ 45.

“We have received the most donations on social media from Bluesky so far from any other platform,” Abugazaleh told TechCrunch.

Abughazaleh is also enthusiastic about the nature of open source blushes. She is trying to repeat this transparency on her YouTube channel, where she plans to share videos documenting her experience in the campaign.

“He turns to be truly transparent how to run for an office because I feel like it’s kind of like this black hole that looks much more difficult than it should be,” she said.

Even if she does not win a place in Congress, she hopes that her openness in this process will inspire other Gen Z candidates to rule.

“If this campaign goes according to plan, I will be the richest woman chosen in the congress,” she said. “But I think it would be cool if we had another candidate who came in and was even more than I was.”