Musk Lashes Out Against NewsGuard Censorship

Musk criticized NewsGuard for censoring content, and called for the EU to clarify its ties with the organization.

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who also owns X, formerly known as Twitter, at an event during the Vivatech technology startups and innovation fair at the Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris, on June 16, 2023. Joel Saget/AFP via Getty Images

Entrepreneur Elon Musk has called the content moderator NewsGuard a “scam” and demanded that it be “disbanded immediately” over claims that it suppresses speech that doesn’t align with the moderator’s political stances. Mr. Musk also has questioned the European Union over its alleged association with NewsGuard.

On Oct. 19, Trump administration official Mike Benz wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter: “[NewsGuard] is knee deep in a plot to get [governments] to bankrupt alternative news. NewsGuard worked [with the] EU on new disinformation code. Its biz model has ‘disinformation compliance’ services [with the] censorship laws it promotes.”