Spotted among the many famous faces at the Super Bowl — a mix of sports stars, actors, models, musicians, politicians — were two people of particular note.
Not First Lady Jill Biden or Damar Hamlin. Not Kevin McCarthy or Rob Gronkowski.
Sitting together and chatting shortly after Rihanna’s halftime show were media mogul Rupert Murdoch, owner of the Fox empire – this year’s broadcaster of the Super Bowl – and Elon Musk, owner of Twitter, SpaceX and Tesla.
As the fans waited for play to restart and the footage was broadcast, commentator Kevin Burkhardt – a Fox employee – noted the “brilliant minds in that box”, while acknowledging that Mr Murdoch pays his salary.
“Rupert pays our checks too, so that’s always good.”
Reactions on Twitter were not nearly as positive.
“The kings of disinformation are at [the] Super Bowl,” wrote Kethevane Gorjestani, White House correspondent for France 24.
“Elon Musk sitting next to Rupert Murdoch at the Super Bowl. Rightwing billionaire media moguls gotta stick together, I guess,” wrote MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan.
“But remember that image next time you hear Musk pretending to be anti-elitist or anti-Establishment or anti the media, or some kind of populist. Lol.”
Democratic strategist Sawyer Hackett posted: “Just two right-wing billionaires who control massive misinformation platforms enjoying each other’s company at the Super Bowl.”
“That can’t be good,” wrote one Twitter user. Others referred to them as “rightwing oligarchs”.
Jon Schwarz, a writer for The Intercept, wrote: “One way we can tell Elon Musk is sincerely outraged by inaccuracy in the media is that he’s sitting next to Rupert Murdoch at the Super Bowl.”
Progressive Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez went with a simple message saying “Birds of a feather flock together”.
Mr Murdoch’s daughter, Elisabeth Murdoch, was also present. She is the executive chairperson of TV and film production and development company, Sister.
