Tech billionaire Elon Musk accused a Business Insider reporter of being part of a fake publication before she could even finish her question on Thursday.
Musk took questions from the press at the VivaTech 2024 Paris Live, where he shut down a reporter once she revealed where she worked.
“Tesla has had a bumpy few months looking at flagging sales at home. Stock market decline, layoffs. When you look back —” she began.
“Yeah, we can stop the question right now because I don’t think Business Insider is a real publication,” Musk shot back.
“Okay,” the reporter replied.
“So let’s move on to the next question,” Musk said.
Musk has become an outspoken harsh critic of the corporate media, such as accusing The New York Times of being a “mouthpiece of the state” in a March 19 tweet after the paper published a headline titled, “It Turns Out The ‘Deep State’ Is Actually Kind Of Awesome.” He alleged that the Wall Street Journal published false reports about him and his company as far back as 2018, calling those who published the story “terrible people.” (RELATED: Elon Musk Threatens To Give NPR Twitter Account To Another Company)
The Twitter CEO filed a defamation lawsuit in federal court in November regarding allegations that the outlet manufactured images showing advertisements from major corporations alongside posts made by white supremacists and neo-Nazis.
Twitter updated its guidelines to label National Public Radio (NPR) as “state-affiliated media” in April 2023, but soon changed it to “government-funded media.”
