Washington Post cancels ad from groups calling for Trump to fire Elon Musk
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
The Washington Post has allegedly cancelled an advertisement calling for Mr Elon Musk to be fired.
PHOTO: ERIC LEE/NYTIMES
Julie Creswell
Follow topic:
NEW YORK - An advertisement that was set to run in some editions of The Washington Post on Feb 18 calling for Mr Elon Musk to be fired from his role in the US government was abruptly cancelled, according to one of the advocacy groups that had ordered the ad.
Common Cause said it was told by the newspaper on Feb 14 that the ad was being pulled. The full-page ad, known as a wraparound, would have covered the front and back pages of editions delivered to the White House, the Pentagon and Congress, and had been planned in collaboration with the Southern Poverty Law Centre Action Fund.
A separate, full-page ad with the same themes would have been allowed to run inside the newspaper, but the two groups chose to cancel the internal ad as well. Both ads would have cost the groups US$115,000 (S$154,000).
“We asked why they wouldn’t run the wrap when we clearly met the guidelines if they were allowing the internal ad,” said Ms Virginia Kase Solomon, president and CEO of Common Cause. “They said they were not at liberty to give us a reason.”
News of The Washington Post canceling the ad was earlier reported by The Hill.
Although it is unclear who made the decision to pull the ad or why, the move comes amid growing concern about the changing mission of the Washington Post newsroom under the ownership of Mr Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.
The newspaper’s decision last autumn to end its long-standing tradition of presidential endorsements and Mr Bezos’ front-row seat at US President Donald Trump’s inauguration have led some to wonder whether the news organisation has been accommodating a Trump administration.
In January, more than 400 employees sent a letter to Mr Bezos requesting a meeting to discuss leadership decisions that they said “led readers to question the integrity of this institution”.
Ms Kase Solomon said that all content for the ad – art and text – had been sent to the Post’s advertisement department on Feb 11 and that “no alarm bells were rung” by anyone from the newspaper at that time. She said she did not know who inside the organisation made the decision to pull the wrap.
The ad featured an image of Mr Musk laughing over a picture of the White House with text that reads: “Who’s Running This Country: Donald Trump or Elon Musk?” The ad called for readers to contact their senators and tell them it is time for Mr Trump to fire Mr Musk.
A Washington Post spokesperson said in an e-mailed statement that the newspaper did not comment on internal decisions related to specific advertising campaigns and pointed to its publicly available general guidelines for advertising.
Mr Jeff Bezos at the 60th presidential inauguration at the US Capitol in Washington on Jan 20.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Common Cause and the Southern Poverty Law Centre Action Fund began a campaign in February to remove Mr Musk from his position as head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, which is not a formal executive-branch department.
Mr Musk, the world’s richest man who controls six companies, including Tesla, SpaceX and the social media platform X, has been given far-reaching power by Mr Trump, who has allowed Mr Musk to dismantle federal agencies
Ms Margaret Huang, president and CEO of the Southern Poverty Law Centre, said the disappearance of crucial programmes and grants would have a direct and negative effect mostly on lower-income individuals and people of color.
“Our goal with this campaign is accountability,” Ms Huang said. “People in government should either be elected or have to comply with all of the standards of federal government official obligations, such as reporting conflicts of interest, things that all of the other Trump nominees for Cabinet positions have had to go through.”
“We are concerned Musk and Doge are acting without appropriate oversight and accountability,” she added, referring to the acronym for the government efficiency initiative Mr Musk has been put in charge of.
Ms Huang said she was both surprised and not when the ad was pulled.
“I’m surprised because I still think of the Post as deeply committed to publishing news that is essential to our democracy,” she said. “But not, because the Post has been making other decisions lately that reflect a new kind of leadership at the organisation.” NYTIMES
