Elon Musk needs enemies.
It is in the face of adversity that the billionaire gives the best of himself. He transcends himself in these moments, so strong is his determination to make others look wrong.
With Tesla (TSLA), nothing was as motivating as disrupting the auto industry, proving that neither Michigan -- home state of GM (GM), Ford (F) and Stellantis' (STLA) Chrysler -- nor Japan, the land of Toyota (TM) and Nissan (NSANY) --nor Germany, home of Volkswagen (VWAGY), BMW (BMWYY) , Mercedes-Benz (DMLRY) , were at the heart of the automobile.
To achieve this, Musk risked his health, faced the most serious financial crisis since 1929 and swept away the doubts of the authorities and the skepticism of legacy carmakers. In the end, he won…for now. Tesla is by far the world's largest automotive group by market capitalization. The maker of the Model Y SUV dominates the global electric vehicle market and has become the symbol of innovation in cars. All car manufacturers today compare themselves to Tesla.
The Media Is Musk's New Enemy
In his ambition to be the greatest innovator of our time, the billionaire has sought and continues to seek to downplay Apple (AAPL) and its former and illustrious co-founder Steve Jobs, the king of innovators. He never misses an opportunity to attack Apple and minimize the revolutionary nature of its products. Jobs died in 2011. Sometimes Musk gives the impression that he would have liked to face him today, on this imaginary fight, armed with the public’s recognition of his visionary charisma.
The billionaire, whose influence and power have increased over the past two years at extraordinary speed, has just found himself a new adversary, with a goal to consolidate his tinsel as a symbol of free speech, icon of the anti-establishment and a maverick ready to shake up the system and its representatives.
In the space of 10 days, he has thus attacked what he considers to be the media institutions. These are the New York Times, National Public Radio (NPR) and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). He did not choose these institutions at random: they are celebrated in the United States and internationally for the quality of their journalism. They are the symbol of media elites in the eyes of Musk and his millions of fans.
The media is also an easy target: most polls show that trust in the media is at its lowest in major Western democracies.
The tycoon began by withdrawing the blue badge authenticating the Twitter account of the New York Times, simply because the media outlet declared that it would not subscribe to Blue, the paid service of Twitter, to which the checkmark has been integrated.
"NY Times is being incredible hypocritical here, as they are super aggressive about forcing everyone to pay *their* subscription,” he said on April 2.
Then he blasted out the organization: "The real tragedy of @NYTimes is that their propaganda isn’t even interesting.”
"Also, their feed is the Twitter equivalent of diarrhea. It’s unreadable. They would have far more real followers if they only posted their top articles. Same applies to all publications.”
A few days later, he went after National Public Radio (NPR) and the BBC. He slapped the label of "government-funded media,” on NPR on Twitter, after having called it "State-affiliated media,” on April 5.
He labeled the British company "publicly funded media.”
Musk has owned Twitter since late October after a $44 billion deal.
'Defund' NPR
Then, he escalated. Musk decided to give an interview to the BBC on the night of April 11. In this interview, he turned the table on the journalist and started asking him about the BBC's editorial decisions.
Without proof, he accused the BBC of having conveyed misinformation related to masks and the side effects of the covid-19 vaccines. He then claimed that the British channel had given in to government pressure to make changes to their editorial lines.
"This is not an interview about the BBC," James Clayton, the BBC journalist responded. "I am not a representative of the BBC's editorial policy. I want to make that clear."
"I said BBC could come [to] Twitter, then, to my surprise, a reporter shows up," Musk celebrated later on Twitter with his millions of followers.
The same day, he lashed out at NPR when the outlet decided to stop posting fresh content on its 52 official Twitter feeds following the label.
"NPR produces consequential, independent journalism every day in service to the public,” NPR tweeted, telling its followers where they can find the work of its teams.
This departure of NPR provoked anger on the part of Musk, who called for the defunding of NPR.
"Defund @NPR," the Techno King lambasted.
He called the broadcaster a hypocrite, and posted a screenshot of a Google result in which the broadcaster's website says "federal funding is essential to public radio's service to the American public."
"NPR literally said “Federal funding is essential to public radio” on their own website (now taken down). What hypocrites!" Musk blasted out.
"Guess they won’t mind losing Federal funding in that case,” Musk mocked then.
In addition, the billionaire posted a screenshot of an email sent to him by an NPR reporter, asking for his reaction on the possibility that other media could follow NPR's example and leave Twitter.
NPR says it is a private, nonprofit company with editorial independence. In 2021, when the media last reported, federal agency contributions made up 1.03% of NPR's $8.2 million budget. The bulk of the budget comes from grants from Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), NPR says.
This fighting style is one that Musk likes because it allows him to reinforce his image as a hero of the people despised by the elites. On this point, he copies the politicians who tend to attack the media when they are in difficulty.
The showdown with the media also comes at a time when questions about the health of Twitter are piling up. In addition, rival social media are launching similar products to the platform and decentralized social networks are having major break through.
