Earlier today, Business Insider dropped a bombshell about Elon Musk having close and substantial financial ties to disgraced FTX head and über-extreme-ultra-mega crypto crook Sam Bankman-Fried:
Sam Bankman-Fried reportedly owns a $100 million stake in Elon Musk's Twitter https://t.co/QrQI8lfz3F
— Insider Business (@BusinessInsider) November 23, 2022
Embattled FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried owns a stake in Twitter that’s worth about $100 million, according to a report from Semafor.
After midnight on May 5, a few weeks after Musk offered to buy Twitter for $44 billion, the Tesla CEO texted Bankman-Fried, inviting him to roll over his public Twitter shares into a stake in Musk’s privately-held company, the publication reported.
Musk’s text followed a message from Bankman-Fried in which he expressed his support for Musk’s plans for Twitter and said he wouldn’t be able to invest new money in Twitter, Semafor reported. The crypto founder added he had about $100 million in stock he could roll over into the deal, the publication said.
There was just one teeny-tiny, itsy-bitsy little problem with Business Insider’s scoop: it wasn’t true.
Musk himself called them out on it — and managed to work in a well deserved dig at their journalistic worth:
False. Also, Business is still not a real publication. Just give up.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 23, 2022
Fact-check: accurate.
Accurate AF, as it turns out. Because check out what Insider global editor-in-chief Nich Carlson tweeted in response:
Our readers (including you!) are smart enough to know what "reportedly" means.
That story reflects what Semafor reported. (We've included your denial in the story.)
Why would we give up when we are having so much fun reporting stories like these?https://t.co/OQDiRRG6id
— Nich Carlson (@nichcarlson) November 23, 2022
If that tweet didn’t already exist, we’d have to invent it. Because holy crap, you guys. Not only is Carlson not-so-subtly admitting that the story is BS, but he’s actually proud of it.
https://twitter.com/beyondreasdoubt/status/1595468348862726144
Oh, it’s real. And it’s spectacular … ly nuts.
Business Insider openly admitting that they don’t care (or check) whether what they’re publishing is true or not because they said “reportedly” in the headline pic.twitter.com/IH237WuW2X
— Austen Allred (@Austen) November 23, 2022
Ah yes, reportedly means you just publish whatever you hear as a headline without any verification whatsoever
— Austen Allred (@Austen) November 23, 2022
https://twitter.com/sora_lucis/status/1595458136550277120
Basically.
So @BusinessInsider is now basically into unreliable tabloid journalism. 🙄
— Christian Mahler (@ChristianMahler) November 23, 2022
Basically.
***
Related:
Elon Musk’s ‘picture of the day’ makes a mockery of Dem investigatory priorities
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