Twitter CEO Elon Musk on Wednesday raised concerns about coziness between the U.S. news media and the government, the latest step in the billionaire’s sometimes bitter relationship with the media.
“Why did American media go from questioning the State and ‘speaking truth to power’ to doing their bidding?” Musk tweeted.
He added, “To be clear, I’m not someone who thinks lots of government agencies should be abolished (maybe a few), but we should always question our institutions, as this strengthens the bedrock of democracy.”
Musk has an often combative relationship with what he has described on Twitter as the “mainstream media.” When he chose to publicize batches of internal documents called the “Twitter Files,” he did so through a hand-picked group of independent journalists who reported on the materials directly over Twitter.
The journalists described many of the Twitter Files as revealing collaboration between the government and Twitter employees to censor politically undesirable content. Musk has indicated he thinks the FBI should be investigated for its role in social media censorship.
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Musk also raised the issue of state influence on the media on Monday.
“State influence/affiliation with media is far more common than most people realize – just look at how much Twitter/FB/Google have been influenced,” he said.
Musk said in November that as Twitter attempts to “elevat[e] citizen journalism, media elite will try everything to stop that from happening.”
He added, “Mainstream media will still thrive, but increased competition from citizens will cause them to be more accurate, as their oligopoly on information is disrupted.”
