Available evidence from the 2024 U.S. election cycle supports Chamath’s framing that state-backed social‑media influence campaigns caused information chaos but did not clearly swing the election outcome.

Multiple foreign governments, notably China and Russia, ran coordinated online influence operations using fake personas, networks like China’s “Spamouflage,” and covertly funded influencers to push divisive narratives and undermine confidence in U.S. institutions across platforms such as X and TikTok. These efforts aimed to stir domestic divisions, promote conspiracy theories, and erode trust in elections rather than overtly support a single candidate in China’s case, while Russia focused on boosting Trump and damaging Democrats via paid American influencers and disinformation channels. (en.wikipedia.org)

However, U.S. cyber‑ and election‑security officials, as well as independent researchers, reported no evidence that foreign operations or hacking materially affected vote tallies or the overall outcome of the 2024 presidential election. CISA director Jen Easterly stated there was “no evidence of activity that has the potential to materially impact the outcome of the presidential election,” and academic work similarly notes no evidence that foreign hackers have successfully altered vote counts, while think‑tank analysis finds AI‑enabled foreign influence campaigns had limited engagement and did not transform their effectiveness. (justice-integrity.org)

At the same time, the U.S. response to TikTok—culminating in the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act and a de jure nationwide TikTok ban based on concerns over propaganda, misinformation, and foreign influence operations—illustrates how these platforms became focal points for public mistrust, polarization, and political conflict. (en.wikipedia.org) Taken together, the record shows: (1) state‑linked use of influencers and algorithmic amplification on platforms like TikTok contributed to significant social and informational chaos, and (2) there is no credible evidence that these efforts were sufficient to swing the U.S. election result—matching Chamath’s prediction that such campaigns “probably wouldn’t swing an election, but … would cause chaos.”