Tesla CEO Elon Musk is going on the offensive following the Insider report alleging the entrepreneur sexually harassed a flight attendant on a SpaceX corporate jet in 2016.
He’s going after the media outlet, but Insider’s global editor-in-chief Nicholas Carlson is standing by his team’s reporting.
The accusation was made by an unnamed source, a friend of the flight attendant, in the Business Insider story, but Carlson said the allegation fulfilled the outlet’s criteria for publishing.
“Anytime you have a very powerful man and there are credible accusations that he’s done something wrong the way that he was accused of doing in this story,” Carlson said on CNN. “That’s absolutely and sort of obviously newsworthy.”
Musk touched on the fact that he has never been accused of anything, even during the MeToo movement, but the allegation surfaced as soon as he attempted to purchase Twitter to restore free speech.
“They began brewing attacks of all kinds as soon as the Twitter acquisition was announced,” Musk tweeted Friday. “In my 30-year career, including the entire MeToo era, there’s nothing to report, but, as soon as I say I intend to restore free speech to Twitter & vote Republican, suddenly there is …”
Carlson stated Insider reporters asked Musk’s team for comment on the allegations before the Tesla CEO went to Twitter to offer his remarks. Furthermore, Carlson adds that the news media outlet has yet to face any legal matters due to the story.
“I reached out to him personally a few times,” Carlson added. “[I] said come talk to us; we want to hear from you.” Musk declined Insider’s offer to grant him more time to respond.”
“We are prepared to defend the story vigorously. It’s the truth that we stand by our story, which is based on documents and interviews. It speaks for itself.”
Eduardo Razo is the Assistant Content Editor for BNM, which includes writing daily news stories on the news media industry. He can be found on Twitter @eddierazo_ or you can reach him by email at eddie1991razo@gmail.com.
