Posted on Thursday, January 16, 2025

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by Andrew Shirley

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Since Elon Musk’s blockbuster purchase of Twitter (now X) in 2022, the world’s richest man has thoroughly revamped the platform into a bastion of free speech. Now he may be setting his sights on a similar venture in the legacy media.

Late last year, Musk fueled speculation that he may be interested in purchasing the liberal cable news network MSNBC when he inquired how much the network might cost and posted memes about buying the channel. MSNBC’s parent company, Comcast, is reportedly moving forward with a plan to spin off its NBCUniversal channels, including MSNBC, into a separate network.

As The Wall Street Journal noted earlier this month, “buying the network wouldn’t be an easy feat” as “Comcast isn’t interested in selling off individual assets.” However, one industry expert told the Journal, “Maybe if the price is right, they would do it.”

For Musk, who is worth more than $400 billion, price shouldn’t be a problem. He purchased Twitter for a cool $44 billion three years ago. MSNBC’s value is only about $7 billion – and decreasing by the day.

Like other legacy outlets, MSNBC has been bleeding viewers in recent years, a trend that dramatically accelerated following the 2024 election. According to Forbes, in the final full week before the election, MSNBC had an average of 1.34 million viewers. By the end of the month, they collapsed to less than 650,000. Similarly, “CNN slid from 754,000 to 398,000 over the same time period.” The only exception was Fox News. As most cable news outlets hemorrhaged viewers, Fox remained well above 2.6 million both before and after the election.

Meanwhile, print media is similarly struggling to stay afloat. The Washington Post has announced layoffs of more than 100 employees, representing about four percent of the paper’s staff. The Post and The Los Angeles Times have also seen dramatic drops in subscriber numbers in recent months.

These legacy outlets are scrambling to find ways to increase annual revenues. Late last year, CNN added a paywall to its website, requiring a $3.99-a-month subscription to view its full library of content. Paywalls are common among print-only publications, but CNN is the first of the “Big Three” news outlets to restrict viewership similarly.

Some liberal activists see this period of uncertainty as an opportunity to double down on progressivism. Legacy media darling Kara Swisher is reportedly “assembling a group to make a bid for The Washington Post.” She confirmed this on her recent podcast while noting that Post owner and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has not indicated he is willing or interested in selling. Her specific justification would be to push the publication to become more partisanly progressive and directly antagonistic toward the Trump administration – a feat that seems rather difficult given the paper’s already militantly left-wing bent.

Musk’s interest in MSNBC may initially seem puzzling from a business perspective, especially considering his previous comments about the network and disdain for the legacy media. He has variously referred to MSNBC as “the utter scum of the Earth” and said the channel “peddles puerile propaganda.” Musk has also reiterated his belief that independent journalists on social media, primarily X, are far more reliable than legacy media outlets, repeatedly telling X users, “You are the media now.”

But there may nonetheless be some allure for Musk when it comes to MSNBC. His abhorrence of the outlet could be viewed as reason enough to purchase it. Stopping the endless stream of left-wing propaganda from its airwaves would likely be both personally satisfying for Musk and help advance the ideological causes that he believes in.

Additionally, Musk has shown time and again that he is willing to take on any challenge, no matter how seemingly insurmountable. He is, after all, the same man whose life ambition is to colonize Mars. He has built reusable rockets, revitalized the American space program, single-handedly mainstreamed electric cars, and is leading half a dozen other futuristic projects. Revitalizing a dying legacy media brand seems relatively pedestrian in this context.

As tarnished as the reputations of legacy media outlets have become in recent years, these institutions still have intrinsic value. The explosion in popularity of so-called “alternative” or “conservative” content platforms directly correlates with the increase in partisan bias emerging at legacy publications.

Americans’ demand for news is only increasing – but that demand is for coverage that doesn’t insult viewers’ intelligence by peddling blatant left-wing propaganda as “news” and covering up rather than exposing the failures of those in power.

If Elon Musk believes he can meet that demand and save MSNBC from itself, history says it would be foolish to doubt him.

Andrew Shirley is a veteran speechwriter and AMAC Newsline columnist. His commentary can be found on X at @AA_Shirley.