MSNBC And Axios In Joint Death Spiral Over Elon Musk Claim That Citizens ‘Are The Media Now’

 Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk apparently struck a raw nerve, triggering MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and Axios’ Jim VandeHei, when he issued a blanket announcement to everyone on his social media platform, X: “You are the media now.”

VandeHei and Axios co-founder Mike Allen were honored at the National Press Club’s 2024 Fourth Estate Award Gala, and VandeHei lashed out at Musk directly during his remarks to Gala attendees.

“Everything we do is under fire. Elon Musk sits on Twitter every day — or X today — saying like, ‘We are the media,’ ‘You are the media.’ My message to Elon Musk is: Bull****. You are not the media,” VandeHei complained. “You having a blue checkmark, a Twitter handle and 300 words of cleverness doesn’t make you a reporter. … You don’t do that by popping off on Twitter. You don’t do that by having an opinion. You do it by doing the hard work.”

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After playing a clip of VandeHei’s comments, “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough seconded every word, leading his response with a slow clap.

“First of all, I’ve got to say, extraordinary content, it needed to be said, it continues to need to be said,” Scarborough said as cohost Mika Brzezinski agreed. “With all of the garbage that’s flying around on social media — lying about reporters, lying about the hard work they do, lying about the hard work editors do, lying about everything up and down about not only their alternative set of facts but their alternative set of facts about what people like you do.”

Scarborough kept going in that vein for several minutes, but when Musk got wind of it, he was not convinced.

“Yeah, whatever lmao. You are the media now. And legacy media know it,” Musk said.

The exchange comes as MSNBC — and a number of the network’s employees — waits to see what the future looks like once NBCUniversal spins off the far-left cable news network.

“What I find absolutely astounding about this is not his anger at Musk,” one person noted. “I can understand and even respect that to some degree. What absolutely baffles me is the total lack of introspection or self reflection as to why the media is so distrusted. Just go back over the past 5-10 years. It’s not hard to figure out. Maybe you should start going about gaining readers trust and turning out a quality product first.”

“What the Axios CEO doesn’t seem to understand or accept is that X is the media now because of all the lying. If the corporate press hadn’t spent decades lying and misleading the public in really obvious, craven, and destructive ways, we wouldn’t be here. But they did so we are,” The Federalist’s John Daniel Davidson added.