The straw that broke the camel’s back came when the moderators fact-checked Vance’s claim about Trump-era tax cuts, cutting him off mid-sentence to clarify numbers. Musk was reportedly livid, muttering to himself, “That’s it, CBS is done.”
CBS executives, caught off guard by Musk’s public denouncement, scrambled to respond. In an official statement, the network brushed off Musk’s claims of bias as “unfounded” and “exaggerated,” stating, “Our moderators were simply doing their job to ensure factual accuracy. We value our viewers and stand by our commitment to honest journalism.”
But Musk wasn’t having it. In a follow-up tweet, he posted, “CBS just called me ‘exaggerated.’ That’s rich coming from the network that thought adding a laugh track to their own news show was a good idea.”
This was a clear reference to CBS’s recent attempt at revamping their prime-time news segment, a strategy that involved awkwardly placed laugh tracks whenever politicians made absurd claims. Let’s just say it didn’t go over well with viewers, and Musk, apparently, never forgot.
As if the loss of Musk’s billion-dollar show wasn’t bad enough, CBS also had to contend with the aftermath of his boycott. Within 24 hours of his announcement, several more advertisers publicly distanced themselves from the network. Ford, Pepsi, and Geico were among the brands that decided they’d rather keep their ads far away from CBS’s “biassed debates and Musk-sized controversy.”
