Elon Musk shoots down suggestion he wants to buy One America News
Tesla CEO Elon Musk shot down a claim from the CEO of One America News that he is interested in buying the far-right cable channel, a favorite of supporters of former President Trump.
“We just received a call from somebody very close to @elonmusk telling us that he would like to talk to us about purchasing @OANN,” Robert Herring, the network’s CEO said in a tweet on Thursday.
“Only Twitter,” Musk replied minutes later.
Musk has earned headlines in recent weeks over a deal struck with Twitter to purchase the social media platform. The billionaire has often been critical of the company’s moderation policies, which he has said frequently amounts to censorship.
At the time, the deal was heralded by Republicans, who argued that under Musk’s potential leadership, the platform would take a more hands-off approach to content moderation.
However, Musk is currently in a stand off with Twitter about internal data he says the social media company is refusing to turn over to him as the two sides reportedly hammer out terms for a potential $44 billion sale.
In May, Musk said that he would put the deal to buy Twitter on hold unless the company could provide information that backs up claims that bots only make up 5 percent of the platform’s users.
OAN, which has featured programming supportive of Trump’s unsupported claims of a “stolen” election, was sued last year for defamation by a voting systems company based on statements made about the 2020 election.
Last month, the network was forced to air a retraction acknowledging there had been no widespread voter fraud committed by a pair of 2020 election workers in Georgia as part of a settlement between the workers and the network after they sued over similar claims.
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