No! Elon Musk is not bidding for CNN, news was satire
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Elon Musk, the tech billionaire and world’s richest man who owns X (Twitter), has not made a bid for CNN, according to fact-checking by USA TODAY. The rumour sent shockwaves around the world last week.
CNN is a liberal global broadcaster based in the United States that claims “more people get their news [from its channel] than any other news source,” and a counterweight to the falsehoods of conservative Fox News, a dominant cable network in the US.
It is public knowledge that Musk, an ally of Donald Trump, spent millions of dollars on his reelection as US President. It is also public knowledge that, in return, Trump has promised him a role in his new administration.
Trump’s fear-mongering and threats about immigrants and other falsehoods, which are widely reported in the US media, are supported by Musk, who amplified them on Fox News (television) and on X (formerly Twitter) on the campaign trail.
Fox News is pro-Trump. Musk in 2022 bought X for $44 billion and now has more than 200 million followers on the social media platform.
Musk, a white man who was born in South Africa, rails against legal and illegal immigrants of colour in the US, a country where he himself once worked as an illegal immigrant, according to investigation by The Washington Post, also reported by CNN.
Trump threatens to embark on the “largest mass deportation of immigrants in history” whereas his father Fred was the son of German immigrant parents, his mother a Scottish immigrant, and all of Trump’s three wives were/are immigrants, including Melania his current wife, who emigrated from Slovenia, per Wikipedia.
All of Trump’s five children were born by immigrant wives.
Politico, an authoritative political news outlet in the US, reports that during the Trump Presidency (2017-2021), Melania’s father Viktor Knavs and mother Amalija Knavs both lived in New York and occasionally appeared at the White House.
Vicktor and Amalija (both immigrants from Slovenia) obtained American citizenship when Trump was President the first time. Amalija died in January 2024 at the age of 78, announced on X (Twitter) by Trump.
Melania sponsored her parents’ immigration to the US. They took the oath of office to become citizens at a New York City courthouse in 2018, while Trump was President. Victor, a former car dealer, and Amalija, a former textile factory worker, had been living in the US as permanent residents.
For Musk to own X along with another powerful media outlet like CNN would have concentrated overwhelming influence in the hands of Musk and his friend, both of who openly spread racist views.
To add CNN to the mouthpieces of the two hypocrites and racists would have been too dangerous for the rest of the world – plus America itself.
But below is the story first published by USA TODAY that lays the rumour to rest, at least for now.
Claim that Musk agreed to buy CNN started as satire
“Elon Musk Agrees to $3 Billion to Buy CNN,” reads the post’s caption. “Elon Musk Reportedly Eyeing CNN Acquisition: ‘I’ll Fix the Media, One Network at a Time.’”
It was shared more than 2,000 times in two days. Other versions of the post were shared hundreds of additional times.
Our rating: False
The claim originated as satire. There is no evidence that Musk has made an agreement to buy CNN for $3 billion.
Musk, the world’s richest person, completed a deal to purchase Twitter, which he later renamed X, for $44 billion in October 2022. However, there is no evidence that Musk has agreed to acquire CNN for $3 billion, as the post claims.
The claim was posted on Facebook on Nov. 4 by a satirical account called Gridiron Glory, which labels itself as satire. The post links to a Nov. 4 article that repeats the claim but provides no evidence to support it.
Musk hasn’t mentioned anything similar to the claim on his X account, nor has CNN, and there are no credible news reports of such an agreement.
The post is an example of what could be called “stolen satire,” where claims written as satire and presented that way originally are reposted in a way that makes them appear to be legitimate news. As a result, readers of the second-generation post are misled, as was the case here.
In April 2022, about six months before Musk took control of Twitter, Discovery completed a merger with WarnerMedia, forming Warner Bros. Discovery, which is now CNN’s parent company. Warner Bros. Discovery hasn’t announced any agreement involving Musk and CNN.
USA TODAY reached out to the social media user who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
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