The Media Research Center spent lots of time and space obsessing over Elon Musk — especially after he bought Twitter and turned it into X — and it was only when Musk started feuding with President Trump that it finally backed off. It didn’t completely back off of Musk, though, and it continued to defend and peddle his views. For instance:
- Elon Musk: ‘Woke Mind Virus’ Still Programmed Into AI; It Just Won’t Admit It
- Musk: “Woke Programming Is Everywhere in Children’s ‘Educational Shows’” – Even Peppa Pig
- Jasmine Crockett Targets Musk ‘Considering the Fact that Elon Is Actually in Texas’
The MRC has also censored criticism of Musk’s Grok AI engine for allowing users to nonconsensually alter images of individuals, including minors, to show them in bikinis or transparent clothing or in sexually suggestive contexts. Indeed, an October 2025 post by Heather Moon praised Musk’s Grok for taking a “more pro-free speech approach” to generating images after it created an image ChatGPT refused to create due to copyright issues.
When it became apparent that Musk would become the world’s first trillionaire, the MRC ran to his defense again. Steve Malzberg complained in a Nov. 9 post:
Last Thursday afternoon as Tesla shareholders were deciding to give their CEO Elon Musk a package that could be worth 1 trillion dollars, CNN’s Kasie Hunt was discussing it on her show, The Arena. Hunt concluded her interview with Congressman Ro Khanna (D-CA) by asking, “Do you think Elon Musk should be a trillionaire, is that a thing we should have?” In other words, should we put a limit on how much financial success a U.S. citizen, especially a conservative one, should be allowed to attain? Just when you thought you’ve heard it all!
Khanna answered that he is all for Musk, or anyone, making all the money he can make, so long as they give a chunk of it to the government, on top of the taxes that are already in place. “..I’m all for Elon becoming a trillionaire, as long as we can have a 5 percent trillionaire tax…My problem is not the wealth generation. It’s that it hasn’t been taxed. Have a wealth tax on all these billionaires and trillionaires.” That answer seemed to please Hunt, who then broke the trillion bucks down this way.
[…]Calling the Musk deal “obscene” is actually what’s obscene. If we asked if it’s fair that Kasie Hunt is making between $1 million and $1.5 million a year to just read other people’s wealth stats on CNN while other people work much harder for much less, would she find that offensive? Would she consider it a personal attack?
But anyway, whether Musk can satisfy the several requirements to earn the trillion, is far from certain. That was artfully pointed out on CNBC’s Power Lunch on Friday by Brian Sullivan: “Before everybody goes bonkers over the one trillion dollar figure, know the details, because the pay package while massive, only happens if Musk and Tesla hit some very heady, maybe impossible targets.” Sullivan said they include 20 million vehicle deliveries, 1 million Robo taxis in production, and 1 million humanoid robots delivered.
There is no doubt that Musk and Tesla have their work cut out for them. But so do we. The real scary part of all of this is not the deal, but the left-wing reaction to it, led by socialist-sounding scolds like Hunt. Questioning how much money is too much money for someone to make in America is scary stuff.
When Musk did become a trillionaire, the MRC’s defense of him renewed again. Alex Christy used a June 13 post to huff:
When Elon Musk’s SpaceX went public on the Nasdaq on Friday, he became the first trillionaire in history. Later that night on HBO’s Real Time, host Bill Maher wondered if you could still be a good capitalist and believe in “some cap on wealth.” Eurasian Group President Ian Bremmer responded not by answering the question but by suggesting that Musk’s history-making day was a result of his donation to President Trump’s 2024 campaign.
Maher wondered, “Is it going to be, like, five people who have all the money in the world, and can you be a good capitalist? Here’s my question: Can you be a good capitalist, because I think I am, or a believer in capitalism and still think there should be some cap on wealth?”
[…]Making matters worse is “That Elon, the first trillionaire, also happens to be the person who gave the most money to the Trump administration, $250 million. They don’t feel like that’s a coincidence, and they don’t have that kind of access no matter how smart they are, no matter how hard they work. For me it’s not about the money. For me it’s about the lack of mobility, the lack of opportunity. The fact that we don’t believe in the American dream.”
Noticing that Bremmer didn’t actually answer the question, Maher tried again. Eventually, Bremmer claimed he personally didn’t have a problem with trillionaires, but it is important for leaders to be aware of the wealth gap.
It is also important for those who are able to appear on national TV shows to give the audience the truth. If people believe that Musk is a trillionaire because of Trump, they are operating on the assumption that history began in 2024. Not only does Bremmer’s claim ignore that Musk became a trillionaire because of the decision to take SpaceX public, but he also ignores that SpaceX’s first government contract was awarded in 2008. It was President Obama who gave Tesla a $465 million loan. Similarly, it was President Biden—and Elizabeth Warren—who gave EV customers a tax break that Trump eventually repealed. If Bremmer wants to talk about Musk’s business relationship with the government, he should talk about all of it.
But that doesn’t negate the fact that Musk donated $250 million to Trump’s campaign, for which he was rewarded by a gig running the Department of Government Efficiency, which didn’t save nearly as much money as had been claimed.