The hacking rumors are being fueled by claims that rural ballot numbers were reported back using Starlink and Musk apparently having an 'App' that allowed him to call the election 4 hours before it was official.
And the disparity in president vs. down ballot races where there are some weird voting patterns with people voting for Trump but then against the pro-Trump candidates for other offices. None of it is clear proof, but it's something that needs to be looked into.
Musk himself? No. His technical abilities seem to be around the level of a fresh computer science graduate: enough to know what people are talking about in technical meetings, not enough to avoid saying and doing stupid things like using lines of code written as a metric for his employees. He's a marketing hype man who made some lucky investment choices and is good at self-promotion. But it doesn't take much competence to, say, have him sign off on hiring a Russian engineer for a key role.
As for the potential method a man in the middle attack would be theoretically possible. The encryption itself is unbreakable but it would be possible to make a social engineering attack where Starlink has "errors" with the SSL connection and hopefully overworked or tech-illiterate poll workers proceed without it and leave an opening for the man in the middle attack. The trouble with this theory is that it's too easy for local poll workers to compare their sent data with the reported results and immediately spot the error.
The other possibility is a hack on the voting machines themselves, but then you're definitely getting way beyond the scope of what Elmu can do and talking about a state-level operation.
If there was any kind of hack it would have to be Russia. We're talking about a scope and difficulty that pretty much requires a state intelligence agency, any private business or political group isn't going to have the operational security, blank check funding, and loyal staff to pull it off without leaks (or even pull it off at all). And you probably need the level of state support that makes a hacker look at their successful exploit sitting on a bank system with millions of dollars ready to be stolen, shrug, and wait patiently for it to reach its real target. Russia is the obvious suspect that has the resources to do it, the history of election interference attempts against the US, and the clearest incentive to do it.
Russia pressuring Elmu to deny services to Ukraine probably doesn't mean anything. Attacking something as heavily secured as the US election infrastructure very likely means burning zero-day exploits, using those exploits early just warns everyone they exist and starts the clock on them being fixed. If Elmu can be convinced by political or financial pressure to just hit the off switch that's far preferable.
We'd be in unprecedented territory and the outcome depends very much depends on exactly how things go with the investigation.
If there are accusations and suspicions without clear proof we just see a repeat of 2020 with one side angry about fraud (with or without justification) but otherwise unable to do anything but use it as a rallying cry in subsequent elections. The system won't take the unprecedented step of overturning the election without conclusive proof and even if there are strong suspicions it's enough plausible deniability that the republicans won't sacrifice their political advantages to turn on Trump.
If there is clear proof of fraud before Trump takes office it could go a couple ways depending on the timing. If the fraud is revealed before election results are certified by the states they could simply refuse to certify the fraudulent results, leaving time for disputes/recounts/etc is why the formal certification happens some time after election day. It would be awkward to try to untangle exactly what the legitimate votes were but most likely enough states would figure out a way to make Harris the winner to avoid further disaster. If the reveal happened between certification and the electoral college vote this is where the fact that electors are theoretically not bound to vote for the candidate who won their state. With clear proof of fraud there would almost certainly be enough who would defect to Harris and hand her the win.
If the proof doesn't appear until after Trump is officially selected as president the only option is impeachment. The desperate hope would be that enough republicans (along with all of the democrats obviously) feel that voting against impeaching a president who was elected by fraud is career suicide and act to protect their own interests. There are a whole lot of pleas of "we had no idea" and Trump is sacrificed to appease the angry mob, and in exchange for supporting impeachment democrats probably look the other way on prosecuting anyone outside of Trump's inner circle. Vance is tainted and impeached as well, and at that point the speaker of the house is next in line. That's a republican but deals are probably made behind the scenes to put in a moderate republican who keeps the seat warm takes no major policy actions without bipartisan support until 2028.
If there is conclusive proof and republicans say "sucks to be you, we're not giving up power" then we're completely beyond any precedent or rational analysis. That's the point where we see riots in DC, endless assassination attempts against every republican official, states openly defying federal law, etc. And who knows where it goes from there, it could be anything from apathetic resignation to someone in the military dropping a drone strike on the white house. But I think this is the least likely outcome. Too many people with too much power don't want that kind of chaos happening, if there is proof of fraud it's too easy to just dispose of Trump and find a new figurehead to replace him once things settle down.
I dunno about all the opinions on manipulation, but I know the answer to what would happen if it was discovered:
Nothing.
The dems would put legal challenges forward, but they'd come to nothing and there would be no change to the result, either because Garland would refuse to act, or the many Republican judges put into place up to and including the SC would find every way to delay or reject it until it was too late and didn't matter. The time to do anything about Trump was in the aftermath of Jan 6. That didn't happen.
I think you're underestimating the sheer rage that would happen if there was proof of a rigged election and the cheater stayed in power. Trump's coup attempt was only forgiven because it failed and everyone assumed that was the end of him, he'd go retire to his golf course and rage about it on twitter but the crisis was averted without any damage to the system. If Trump had succeeded that's the kind of thing where being voted out in the next election is the least of their concerns, there's a high chance of justices and politicians being dragged out of their houses and murdered in the streets as a warning to others or the military launching a counter-coup to restore order.
