Axios CEO Jim VandeHei and X owner Elon Musk locked horns over who defines “the media” in the wake of the election.
In the early morning hours of Nov. 6, as Donald Trump was being declared president-elect, Musk wrote to his X followers, “You are the media now,” a sentiment he has repeated in the weeks since.
VandeHei delivered a fiery speech in response on Thursday as he was honored, along with his Axios co-founder Mike Allen, with the National Press Club’s Fourth Estate Award.
“I hate this damn debate about, like, ‘Oh, we don’t need the media,’” the Axios CEO said, later arguing that, for journalists, “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: ‘Bulls—. You’re not the media.’” he said to applause.
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Elon Musk laughs while onstage during The New York Times Dealbook Summit 2023 at Jazz at Lincoln Center on November 29, 2023 in New York City. (Photo by Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images for The New York Times) (Getty Images)
“You having a blue checkmark, a Twitter handle, and 300 words of cleverness doesn’t make you a reporter any more than me looking at your head and seeing that you have a brain and telling you I have an awesome set of tools makes me a damn neurosurgeon, right? Like, what we do, what journalists do, what you did in Mississippi, what Al Jazeera does in the Middle East,” he said, referencing other award winners in the room.
VandeHei then appeared to call out Musk again, “You proclaim yourself to be a reporter? Like, that’s nonsense. Like, being a reporter is hard, really hard. You have to care. You have to do the hard work. You have to get up every single day and say, ‘I want to get to the closest approximation of the truth without any fear, without any favoritism.’ 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.”
Musk shared a clip from the speech and replied, “Yeah, whatever lmao.” He then appeared to address X users in saying, “You are the media now. And legacy media know it.”
He also responded to a Not The Bee article headlined “Axios’ CEO had a meltdown because Elon Musk says citizen reporters have eclipsed the corporate media,” replying,  “That’s because it’s working. You are the media now.”
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Axios CEO Jim VandeHei scorched Elon Musk and the X platform for emboldening everyday people to think they can seek out the truth of current events as well as journalists. (National Press Club Live YouTube channel)
“The legacy media forgot that honesty really is the best policy,” he added. “Now you are the media.”
The day after the election, Musk wrote, “The reality of this election was plain to see on X, while most legacy media lied relentlessly to the public. You are the media now. Please post your thoughts & observations on X, correct others when wrong and we will have at least one place in the world where you can come to find the truth.”
The credibility and popularity of mainstream media has plummeted in recent years.
A study shared by Gallup in October indicates that American’s trust in the news media remains at a historic low, with only 31% of those polled expressing a “great deal” or “fair amount” of faith in the media to report news properly.
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“For the third consecutive year, more U.S. adults have no trust at all in the media (36%) than trust it a great deal or fair amount. Another 33% of Americans express ‘not very much’ confidence,” Gallup Senior Editor Megan Brenan wrote.
Polling also indicates that the news media is the “least trusted group among 10 U.S. civic and political institutions,” with the U.S. Congress only slightly behind at 34%.
