How Elon Musk wants to kill journalism

Musk ist between madness and genius. At the moment, he is waging a war against the media and journalism. The momentum is on his side and journalists need to react. But can they?

Photo by nader saremi on Unsplash

Dear Readers,

Almost four years ago, the then U.S. President Donald Trump was blocked from the social network Twitter. The storming of the Capitol took place in Washington D.C. during this time.

Four years later, Donald Trump has been re-elected president. The reasons for this are complex.

In any case, Twitter is now called “X” and is owned by Elon Musk. Musk is not only the richest, but now also one of the most powerful men in the world. He is powerful because X has around 600 million active users.

The absolute numbers aren’t even the most important factor here. In contrast to Facebook (3 billion monthly users) or Instagram (2.4 billion monthly users), the X numbers are almost “peanuts”. But there is a huge difference between Musk and Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg: Musk uses X to spread his own personal content and opinions as well as the agenda of his new “boss”, Donald Trump. X has become a propaganda medium for Musk’s worldview.

Last week, I took a closer look at the tech billionaire’s content on X and analyzed it. The result: Musk is waging a battle against the media and journalism. He is using an old trick. The people, the citizens, the users should decide - says Musk. Power to the people. But in reality, the exact opposite is happening.

“Psychological manipulation”

Elon Musk is to become the head of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, in Trump’s cabinet. His (supposed) task: cutting bureaucracy and jobs in U.S. government agencies.

But this will not be Musk’s only priority. The multi-billionaire is already something like the Chief of Staff for Opinion. And he is targeting the established media and journalists in particular.

In the past few days, for example, Musk shared this tweet: “The only time anyone should watch the news is to study how psychological manipulation works on the general public.” It has been viewed over 48 million times.