It all started with the vice-presidential debate between Republican J.D. Vance and Democrat Tim Walz, hosted by CBS. The debate, which was supposed to be a cordial exchange of ideas, quickly turned into a contentious affair, with CBS moderators fact-checking Vance in real-time, often interrupting him mid-sentence.
Musk, who was watching the debate from his Mars-bound bunker (probably), didn’t take kindly to the interruptions. “It’s one thing to hold people accountable,” Musk tweeted, “but when you interrupt someone 23 times in an hour, that’s not accountability—that’s bias.” He followed up with a scathing tweet just minutes later, “CBS should rename itself the ‘Kamala Broadcasting System.’”
What really seemed to push Musk over the edge was a moment in the debate when Vance mentioned Musk’s ventures into clean energy. As Vance praised Tesla’s role in reducing carbon emissions, one of the moderators cut in, fact-checking Vance by stating that Tesla had also faced scrutiny for working conditions in its factories. The interruption, to Musk, was proof of the network’s vendetta.
