C_Clayton_Jones
Diamond Member
The Tesla billionaire is using his social media site X to rant and accuse. The politics of rage rarely worked out well for earlier moguls.
‘An entrepreneur who revolutionized the automobile business decides he now needs to change how the world thinks, so he buys a media property to use as a megaphone. His rants validate many people’s worst impulses while also encouraging enemies of democracy around the world.
This sounds like Elon Musk and his social media site X in 2025, but it was also Henry Ford and his paper, The Dearborn Independent, in the 1920s. Ford, the inventor of the Model T, bought a suburban weekly and remade it to push his antisemitic views. The Dearborn Independent published a long-running series called “The International Jew,” which blamed Jews for the world’s ills, and publicized “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” a hoax document. The Nazis gave Ford a medal.
[…]
Ford was sued for libel over The Dearborn Independent and became the subject of boycotts. He closed the paper in 1927, although he did not repent his views. A stain lingered.’
Unfortunately, Musk will likely not experience a similar fate – X will continue to be the venue of racism, bigotry, and hate, of conspiracy theories, disinformation, and lies.
‘An entrepreneur who revolutionized the automobile business decides he now needs to change how the world thinks, so he buys a media property to use as a megaphone. His rants validate many people’s worst impulses while also encouraging enemies of democracy around the world.
This sounds like Elon Musk and his social media site X in 2025, but it was also Henry Ford and his paper, The Dearborn Independent, in the 1920s. Ford, the inventor of the Model T, bought a suburban weekly and remade it to push his antisemitic views. The Dearborn Independent published a long-running series called “The International Jew,” which blamed Jews for the world’s ills, and publicized “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” a hoax document. The Nazis gave Ford a medal.
[…]
Ford was sued for libel over The Dearborn Independent and became the subject of boycotts. He closed the paper in 1927, although he did not repent his views. A stain lingered.’
Unfortunately, Musk will likely not experience a similar fate – X will continue to be the venue of racism, bigotry, and hate, of conspiracy theories, disinformation, and lies.
