Elon Musk est devenu un show de téléréalité (et les médias ne le prennent pas en compte)
"The Zuck versus Musk battle will be livestreamed on X. All proceeds will go to a charitable organization." The announcement was posted on Sunday, on Elon Musk's recently renamed microblogging platform, amidst a series of diverse posts about the impossibility of trusting the media, The Boring Company's tunnel designed for Tesla vehicles to escape traffic in Las Vegas, and rocket launch videos.
This tech guru battle is so outrageous that it's fascinating. And that's the danger, according to journalist Casey Newton. "If the Musk-Zuckerberg feud was a scripted WWE show, we could all sit back and enjoy the spectacle. But these are CEOs of publicly traded companies, and they can move markets with their announcements," he reminds us in the latest edition of his newsletter Platformer, published on Tuesday, August 8th. This exceptional position encourages the media to take Musk's grandiose announcements at face value. However, this gullibility is inappropriate when it comes to him.
The Stretched Truth Saga
That's actually the specialty of the South African: "Stretching the truth until it falls apart," to quote the journalist's formula. "Since he lied about having 'guaranteed funding' to privatize Tesla, it's clear that we should apply a healthy discount rate to everything he says."
Yes, Elon Musk has done unconventional things such as building a tunnel to avoid traffic jams and sending a Tesla into space with David Bowie playing on the radio. He also smoked cannabis during a podcast show and posted a photo of himself wearing a "I love Canada" t-shirt in a way that made it appear as "I love anal" to the person facing him. But despite his unpredictable behavior, instances where the entrepreneur backtracks on his word are numerous. The MMA fight situation perfectly exemplifies this point: until the tweet mentioned earlier was published, there were few indications that Musk genuinely took the project seriously - and there is nothing stopping him from canceling his promises at the last minute now.
However, a very casual attitude towards information can be observed in more serious fields. For example, the construction of a tube allowing for travel at 1200 km/h, particularly in the Toulouse region (a project that quickly fell through after causing a lot of noise), or more recently, the announced measures to revolutionize X, formerly known as Twitter (last weekend, it claimed, without evidence, that it would cover the legal expenses of anyone "unfairly treated" for posting or liking a post on X, following the suspension of a NASCAR driver for liking a meme parodying George Floyd's death).
A Musk-flavored Public Debate
However, many media outlets specialized in corporate journalism and tech are not accustomed to approaching their subjects with a critical perspective, and rush to echo every statement from Musk, like a compelling reality show, without bothering to mention that he has a somewhat distant relationship with the truth. According to Casey Newton, the problem is not only an ethical one: it is also societal, as Elon Musk is powerful enough (especially since acquiring Twitter) to influence public discourse. He suggests, "Let's assume that everything he says about a potential feud with Zuckerberg is not true unless Zuckerberg or Meta confirm it. And what about those lawsuits? Maybe wait for X to cover the legal bills of a single user before giving it any attention."
Precautionary measures that the media are used to, after two presidential campaigns and four years of Donald Trump's presidency. Over time, doubts have become more systematic, and some TV channels have stopped broadcasting his public appearances live because it was impossible to effectively fact-check all of his statements in real time. "Musk's unfulfilled promises haven't yet reached the level of lies that Trump has told as president. But given his recent track record, it is high time that the press gives him an equal measure of skepticism," argues Casey Newton. Stay tuned for the next episode?
