In an email to employees on Monday, Google chief executive Sundar Pichai said regardless of who wins the presidential election, the company must be a “trusted source of information to people of every background and belief,” according to the Washington Post.
Interestingly enough, in late September, former president and Republican nominee Donald Trump threatened to prosecute Google if he were elected again. He claimed the tech giant “illegally” showed only “bad stories” about him and only “good” ones about Vice President and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, per the New York Times.
But at a rally last month, Trump said he’d talked to the “leader of Google.” He later clarified during a podcast that it was Pichai; Trump told Joe Rogan that Pichai apparently complimented Trump’s McDonald’s french fry campaign stop.
Today, on Election Day, Trump’s billionaire backer Elon Musk reposted other tweets questioning Google prompts and maps seemingly only showing where to vote for Harris.
Google answered, posting to X: “The ‘where to vote’ panel is triggering for some specific searches bc Harris is also the name of a county in TX. Happens for ‘Vance’ too bc it’s also the name of a county. Fix is coming. Note very few people actually search for voting places this way.”
The “where to vote” panel is triggering for some specific searches bc Harris is also the name of a county in TX. Happens for “Vance” too bc it’s also the name of a county. Fix is coming. Note very few people actually search for voting places this way. pic.twitter.com/P8xSxcJmLa
— News from Google (@NewsFromGoogle) November 5, 2024
Musk responded: “Thanks for the clarification.” And the problem is now fixed, according to Google.