Hey, First Buddy. Here’s A Far Better Tire For You To Kick

MEMO TO: ELON MUSK,

FR: STEVE LEBLANG, MEDIA CONSULTANT, SL MEDIA ENTERPRISES

RE:  POTENTIAL “TRADITIONAL MEDIA” ACQUISITIONS

Yo, Bruh.

It’s come to my attention that now that you’ve conquered the worlds of automobile manufacturing, space travel and social media enough so that you’re firmly established as the world’s richest man.  At least that’s what FORBES Magazine wrote this week, for as much as one can believe what old-school media says these days.

But it seems that you’re now at least considering dipping some of your $344 billion net worth into those waters.  No less than the editors of THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER, Benjamin Svetkey and Julian Sancton , took note of and amplified your thoughts in a piece they dropped a week ago:

If you happen to be one of Elon Musk‘s 206 million followers, you probably know the world’s richest man has been mulling the possibility of purchasing MSNBC. Or at least that he was joshing about it with Donald Trump Jr. in a series of pre-Thanksgiving posts on X that seemed custom-built to ruin Rachel Maddow’s holiday. “Hey Elon, I have the funniest idea ever,” the president-elect’s son quipped about a (false) rumor that the liberal-leaning cable news channel was for sale. “How much does it cost?” Musk bantered back in what most observers assumed was a joke. But, of course, many a true word is oft spoke in jest (as Shakespeare once put it in less than 280 characters), and some sharp-eyed Musk watchers noted that the rocket tycoon posted exactly the same jokey sentiments just before he purchased Twitter in 2022 for a $44 billion.

And I suppose I can understand why you’d be kicking those tires.  After all, Comcast has put the network, along with its other underperforming cable networks, up for sale, and while their intention is to keep them all in some sort of package they’re open to cherrypickers like you.   And besides, you’re probably more than a tad miffed at the kind of stuff that MSNBC contributors have been putting out about you, such as this opinion piece authored by Ed Niedermeyer, author and co-host of The Autonocast that also dropped last week:

Once upon a time, when Tesla CEO Elon Musk was just another Silicon Valley founder looking for attention, he happened upon a novel approach to the art of self-branding. In a master stroke of image crafting, Musk positioned himself as “the good billionaire,” whose noble missions to save the planet and bring life to new ones separated him from the rapacious self-interest people rightly ascribe to the fabulously wealthy.

Now, having ridden that branding to a previously unimaginable level of wealth and power, Musk is shedding its inconvenient burdens. Perhaps most dramatically, he is locked in a battle with the Delaware Chancery Court over a stunning $56 billion pay package. After court Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick overturned Tesla’s attempts to approve the package for a second time, Musk’s subsequent online outbursts at the ruling and McCormick herself make it clear that he really does care about the money after all. But his fury also reveals something deeply personal.

For more casual observers, Musk’s turn from environmental hero to election-buying oligarch roughly coincided with his 2022 purchase of Twitter. But his 2018 compensation package was its genesis, marking Tesla’s turn from automotive innovator to stock-pumping hype factory. Beyond its sheer size — dwarfing any corporate compensation plan up to that point — its structure also doubled down on Musk’s stock-pumping instead of incentivizing more balanced leadership. Tellingly, the proposal coincided with Musk’s first unambiguously villainous episodes on Twitter, in which he called a hero of the Thai cave rescue operation a “pedo” and later announced a private buyout of Tesla so entirely imagined that he had to settle fraud charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

For that to come out at around the same time that you’ve been given a whole new set of priorities, that can’t help but drag down your rizz.  And we do know how your twin–ya know, the guy you just helped get re-elected?–feels about media companies that aren’t Pravda-like in how they cover him.  Since you two have been spending so much time together of late, it’s understandable how you might be picking up some of those qualities.

But as a businessman, I’d hope you might have noticed that MSNBC is pretty much scorched earth of late.  You might have even noticed this objective update from THE LOS ANGELES TIMES’ Stephen Battaglio that dropped yesterday:

Viewers have fled left-leaning MSNBC since Vice President Kamala Harris lost the presidential race to former President Trump on Nov. 5. The audience for the Comcast-owned channel is down 46% compared to the first 10 months of 2024, according to Nielsen data.  Fox News, which last week presented Trump with its “Patriot of the Year” honor, has seen its audience surge. In November, the Murdoch family’s network captured a 70% share of the cable news audience in the weeks since the president-elect won another term in the White House; that’s the largest in its history.

I’m a bit more confident you’re aware that despite that dominance all is not well in the Murdoch world of late, as QUARTZ’ Ben Kesslen, among others, observed earlier this week:

A Nevada commissioner denied Rupert Murdoch’s attempt to change his irrevocable trust and leave his conservative media empire under the sole control of his son, Lachlan, according to a report Monday.

The New York Times reported that Commissioner Edmund J. Gorman, Jr. issued a scathing ruling Saturday against Murdoch, who thought giving Lachlan full reign of his companies would guarantee their continued right-wing slant.

Commissioner Gorman called the attempt to change the trust a “carefully crafted charade” meant to “permanently cement Lachlan Murdoch’s executive roles” that was being done “regardless of the impacts such control would have over the companies or the beneficiaries” of his trust.

Since I know your first buddy is feeling relatively warm about Murdoch in light of his “honor”–and you apparently have already started to carve out your own relationship with him–you probably can surmise that he’s got a problem.  But like just about any problem someone like you can encounter, throwing money at it is a great way to solve it.

So let me ask you to consider turning your beady eyes away from the jezebel that is MSNBC and consider buying FOX instead?

As long as Rupes is breathing, he has the option to cash out.  He sold the balance of his empire, the proverbial “middle of the paper”, to of all places Disney, for crissakes.  They still haven’t quite figured out a way to effectively monetize their investment.   I have little doubt your new role would bring to light all kinds of ways to operate his companies far more cost-effectively.  I bet even you already figured out you could cut down THE FIVE to at least one and a half.

You’d probably even be magnamanious enough to keep Rupes on in an advisory role for as long as he’s mentally able to.  Heck, a whole bunch of his subordinates are winding up as fellow members of your cabinet and administration anyway.

And don’t forget you’ve already got one of his more established stars in your camp anyhow.  Sheesh, wouldn’t it be delicious if he were to make a triumphant return, in a multi-media real time manner of course, to reaffirm his dominance and put the final nail in the competitive coffin that would bury “ratings viagra” Rachel Maddow once and for all?

Your biggest challenge would likely be to somehow educate enough of that audience to become facile enough with social media to goose X’s flatlining subscriber counts.  You would have had that problem with MSNBC as well.  But guess what?  According to HR NEWS, as of this past February, (a)ccording to a report by the Los Angeles Times, the median age of  Fox News(‘s audience is) 68 and MSNBC (‘s is) 71.   That’s at least a head start.

And as for running all of those other incidental businesses like the broadcast network and sports?  Your X CEO Linda Yaccarino had a whole lot of experience in managing and monetizing their competitors.  We haven’t heard much from her of late.  Instead of merely pissing away $20 million a year on her occasionally speaking out in favor of you, why not give her a real job?

As for Lachlan, let alone his sibs?  Well, you of all people can identify with how to screw with your kids’ minds.  It’s pretty clear they didn’t mind f–king with their dad’s legacy, as the BBC’s Christal Hayes reported earlier this week:

The famous family was one of the inspirations behind the hugely popular TV series Succession – something the Murdochs have always refused to comment on.

But according to the New York Times report, which is based on a copy of the sealed court ruling, the billionaire’s children had started discussing their father’s death and how they would handle it after an episode of the HBO series where “the patriarch of the family dies, leaving his family and business in chaos”.

The episode led to Elisabeth’s representative to the trust writing a “‘Succession’ memo” that sought to prevent this from happening in real life, said reports.

So why not help him get the last laugh while he’s still on this mortal coil?   After all, we know you’re dedicated to helping out older men these days.

Just giving you a little food for thought.  We know your diet has been suffering of late.  You deserve better nourishment, and it can start with a healthier network.

Your new buddy,

Steve

Until next time…

 

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