Elon Musk’s New Threat Over Vegas Cybertruck Explosion Makes No Sense

Elon Musk might be about to start suing any news outlet that fails to clarify that the Tesla Cybertruck that exploded in front of Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas this week did not simply explode, but rather contained exploding fireworks.

The billionaire technocrat was quick to clarify Wednesday that the car had not suffered a catastrophic malfunction.

“We have now confirmed that the explosion was caused by very large fireworks and/or a bomb carried in the bed of the rented Cybertruck and is unrelated to the vehicle itself,” Musk wrote on X. “All vehicle telemetry was positive at the time of the explosion.”

A few hours later, he weighed in on the media’s characterization of the so-called Cybertruck explosion, which documented, for all intents and purposes, a smoldering Cybertruck that had clearly experienced an explosion.

Anti-trans filmmaker Robby Starbuck posted on X lamenting the press’s coverage of the incident, suggesting that Musk ought to take legal action over headlines for simply using phrases such as “Tesla Cybertruck explosion,” without clarifying that the truck itself had not spontaneously exploded.

“Honestly @elonmusk should consider suing outlets who framed the story like this. These headlines are sabotaging @Tesla’s brand by making people think it caught on fire. There’s about 1 Tesla fire for every 130 million miles traveled. Other cars have 1 every 18 million miles,” Starbuck wrote, including a screen shot of a headline from Business Insider.

Musk reposted Starbuck, writing, “Maybe it is time to do so.”

The technocrat seems to be mulling whether to pick up a trick from his buddy Donald Trump, who has decided that he will sue any news outlet that says something he doesn’t like.

Starbuck and Musk are part of the same postliterate internet ecosystem built on reactionary responses to the headlines of articles users don’t actually bother to read. Lawsuits over the dispassionate, often 60-character, abbreviated versions of events that are later expanded upon in the body of the article simply suggest poor reading comprehension more than anything else.

Apparently nothing is above politics for Louisiana Senator John Kennedy, who chose a terrorism press conference for the deaths of 15 people as an opportune platform to make some jabs at his political foes.

The MAGA lawmaker took a swipe at the media during a Wednesday press conference on the New Year’s Eve attack in New Orleans, quickly reminding Louisianians—in the midst of a national tragedy—of the news media’s assumed political bent. While identifying which outlets the attending reporters were with, Kennedy referred to NBC’s placement “on the right” of the podium.

“That’s an unusual position,” Kennedy said.

When the reporter said they didn’t understand the comment, Kennedy added, “You wouldn’t.”

Kennedy’s comments, which detracted from local and federal authorities sharing details on the attack, were roundly criticized as tone-deaf. The ongoing investigation is rushing to identify the perpetrators of a multipronged domestic terrorism scheme that involved a pickup truck mowing down a crowd of people on New Orleans’s Bourbon Street. But the off-color remarks didn’t just frustrate members of the media working to share developments in the case—Kennedy’s comments also angered some on the right, including the X account Republicans Against Trump, which lambasted the senator as a “disgrace.”

“For these asses it’s only and always about the politics,” wrote former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele. “An attack on the citizens of his community and Sen. Kennedy think it’s cute to take a political jab at the press.”

Early on Thursday, Donald Trump pushed an obviously incorrect theory that the attack was the result of the nation’s “open borders” policy. The FBI’s suspect for the attack, 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar, is a U.S. citizen born in Texas.

Elon Musk’s foray into politics is going global. The billionaire has announced that he’ll be hosting a live conversation on his social media platform X with Alice Weidel, co-chair of the far-right, anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) Party. While the discussion has no official date yet, an AfD spokesperson stated that it would “definitely” be before the country’s election on February 23. This event will likely be very similar to the sit-down that Musk had with Donald Trump on the app in August, an affair that was riddled with technical difficulties.

This announcement comes as Musk was accused of election interference on Monday by the German government after writing a pro-AfD opinion column for a German newspaper, in which he stated, “Portraying the AfD as far-right is clearly false, considering that Alice Weidel, the party’s leader, has a same-sex partner from Sri Lanka! Does that sound like Hitler to you? Come on!” He also proclaimed, “Only the AfD can save Germany” on X in December.

Musk has also been commenting on U.K. politics, posting “Free Tommy Robinson!” on X on New Year’s Day. Robinson is a popular far-right, Islamaphobic activist and founding member of the British National Party. He was imprisoned for breaching an injunction regarding his repeated racially charged libel of a 15-year old Syrian boy via social media posts. Musk has had his eye on the U.K. for about a year now, calling it a state where “civil war is inevitable.”

The world’s richest man seems to have his sights set on becoming its most powerful unelected official too.

Technocrat billionaire Elon Musk finally owned up Wednesday to restricting his critics’ X accounts. But the self-described “free speech absolutist” doesn’t see anything wrong with it.

Last week, Musk began stripping the verifications from far-right accounts run by people who challenged his support for H-1B visas, after he and his co–DOGE czar Vivek Ramaswamy went to war arguing that Asian workers were far better than American ones. Obviously, the pro-white American far right didn’t take too kindly to that messaging.

Among those who received disciplinary actions were Laura Loomer, the far-right activist and self-described “proud Islamophobe” whom Donald Trump ferried around during his presidential campaign, and neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes, whom Musk had invited back onto the platform just over six months ago.

By taking away their verifications and knocking them out of X Pro, it seems that Musk has rendered several large accounts unable to receive ad revenue from X. Verification makes an account more visible too, so he has curbed their potential audiences.

Musk also suspended some smaller accounts, according to Mediaite. He defended his decision Wednesday via his favorite medium: replies on X.

“People getting demonetized for their inexcusable behavior then complaining about free speech is hilarious to me,” wrote Nicole Behnam, a journalist. “You can say whatever you want. You just can’t get paid for it. Hope this helps.”

“Exactly,” replied Musk. “The first amendment is protection for ‘free speech’, not ‘paid speech’ ffs.”

In response to a post from Fuentes claiming, “Twitter censorship is back,” Musk replied, “Claiming censorship while simultaneously getting millions of views is the clearest possible evidence that Fuentes has 💩 for brains.”

This kind of logic must be new to Musk, who, if memory serves, spent several months last year fundraising and pamphleteering on behalf of Trump and JD Vance—both of whom ceaselessly whine about censorship while also having the biggest platforms in the country.

Of course, it’s not the users’ racism or hate speech that Musk is opposing—the technocrat billionaire recently backed Germany’s ethnonationalist party and has been known to elevate hate speech at the cost of shareholder value—but, rather, it’s punishing dissent within the party he intends to take over.

An Islamic State–inspired U.S. Army veteran killed 15 people when he drove a pickup through New Orleans’s crowded Bourbon Street on New Year’s Eve—and President-elect Donald Trump has decided that immigrants should shoulder the blame for the horrifying attack.

In a lengthy Truth Social post early Thursday, Trump claimed that the domestic terrorism incident was the result of open borders, distracted authorities, and the Democratic establishment.

“Our Country is a disaster, a laughing stock all over the World! This is what happens when you have OPEN BORDERS, with weak, ineffective, and virtually nonexistent leadership,” Trump wrote. “The DOJ, FBI, and Democrat state and local prosecutors have not done their job. They are incompetent and corrupt, having spent all of their waking hours unlawfully attacking their political opponent, ME, rather than focusing on protecting Americans from the outside and inside violent SCUM that has infiltrated all aspects of our government, and our Nation itself.”

Fact check: The FBI’s suspect for the attack, 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar, is a U.S. citizen born in Texas. And choosing to undermine the reputation of investigative agencies looking into the attack is a hair-raising choice for the man about to retake the White House in 18 days.

“Democrats should be ashamed of themselves for allowing this to happen to our Country,” Trump continued. “The CIA must get involved, NOW, before it is too late. The USA is breaking down—A violent erosion of Safety, National Security, and Democracy is taking place all across our Nation. Only strength and powerful leadership will stop it. See you on January 20th. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

Even Fox News issued an on-air correction for Trump’s incendiary statement, reminding viewers that Jabbar served in the Army and was not an immigrant. But Trump has since doubled down on his perspective, insisting that “TRUMP WAS RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING!”

The post echoed some of Trump’s more violent comments on immigration. In 2023, the MAGA leader leaned on appalling language that recalled Adolf Hitler’s fascistic rhetoric designed to dehumanize his enemies. Trump referred to his political rivals—the GOP-anointed “Communists, Marxists, Fascists, and Radical Left Thugs”—as “vermin,” and claimed that immigrants are “destroying the blood of our country.”