Elon Musk points a finger in the air while speaking.
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‘Lead us not into temptation’: Elon Musk jokes about overhauling a major news company with sacrilegious meme

Since announcing MSNBC’s spin-off, Elon Musk has been joking about buying the site. The billionaire has recently meme’d about how tempting it would be to purchase the site.

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Amidst Musk’s barrage of tweets included several attacks against MSNBC’s host, Rachel Maddow, and several jokes about buying the news channel. One specific tweet about MSNBC was rather unholy. It was captioned, “And deliver us not into temptation.” The image attached to the tweet follows the Monk Temptation meme template. It shows a rather risque woman and a priest trying to look away.

It’s not like Musk’s fans and politically aligned allies are worried. In fact, they’re celebrating the possibility of a Musk takeover. Over at X (formerly Twitter), a reply to Musk hoped that former Infowars owner Alex Jones would be the face of the new MSNBC bought by Musk. Concerningly, Musk has vaguely entertained the idea through a tweet.

Not a laughing matter

While MSNBC may be safe for now, concerns about Musk’s jokes aren’t unfounded. He’s not the type to joke and laugh. Musk has joked about buying Twitter before and proceeded with the purchase. Since then, there has been a flood of hate speech on the platform, which may make the average user wonder if the site’s moderation is broken.

Needless to say, buying sources of information and screwing them over seem to be a hobby for Musk. The salacious meme couldn’t be more accurate if Musk has actual intentions to buy the channel. After all, Musk has an actual stake in buying MSNBC to dampen criticism for Donald Trump and his allies in support of the incoming administration. Aside from his relationship with Trump, Musk has a personal incentive to buy the news channel as part of his war on ‘wokeness.’  MSNBC has provided openly leftist commentary and criticism, which may be stiffled under Musk ownership.


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Vanessa Esguerra
Vanessa Esguerra (She/They) has been a Contributing Writer for The Mary Sue since 2023. After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Economy, she (happily) rejected law school in 2021 and has been a full-time content writer since. Vanessa is currently taking her Master's degree in Japanese Studies in hopes of deepening her understanding of the country's media culture in relation to pop culture, women, and queer people like herself. She speaks three languages but still manages to get lost in the subways of Tokyo with her clunky Japanese. Fueled by iced coffee brewed from local cafés in Metro Manila, she also regularly covers anime and video games while queuing for her next match in League of Legends.