Politics
Elon Musk’s Use of X Mimics Hearst’s and Ford’s Manipulation of Media
An entrepreneur who revolutionized the automobile business decides he now needs to change how the world thinks, so he buys a media property to use as a megaphone. His rants validate many people’s worst impulses while also encouraging enemies of democracy around the world.
This sounds like Elon Musk and his social media site X in 2025, but it was also Henry Ford and his paper, The Dearborn Independent, in the 1920s. Ford, the inventor of the Model T, bought a suburban weekly and remade it to push his antisemitic views. The Dearborn Independent published a long-running series called “The International Jew,” which blamed Jews for the world’s ills, and publicized “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” a hoax document. The Nazis gave Ford a medal.
Ford was perhaps the most blatant example in a long tradition of moguls who bought media platforms and then used them to promote odious views. These tycoons often used the latest in technology to reach the widest audience, whether it was high-speed newspaper presses or, in Ford’s case, his network of car dealerships.
Drive off in your new Model T and there would be The Dearborn Independent on the seat. Newspapers at the time were local businesses. With the dealerships, The Dearborn Independent became one of the highest-circulated papers in the country, printing more than 750,000 copies of each issue at its peak.
The biggest difference between Ford and other media titans like Rupert Murdoch was that the latter generally promoted their views by hiring like-minded editors and anchors. The Dearborn Independent announced on its cover that it was the “Ford International Weekly,” and it included a full-page editorial signed by Ford.
Mr. Musk’s actions signal a return to Ford’s personal approach. The Tesla and SpaceX billionaire has enthusiastically posted, reposted and endorsed incorrect or inflammatory claims on X that Social Security is fraudulent, that the Democrats are importing immigrants to win elections and that the federal judges who are ruling against the Trump administration should be impeached.
There are plenty of precedents for what Mr. Musk is doing with X. But he has taken the process to a level unimaginable even a short time ago. The site says he has 220 million followers, an assertion impossible to verify. Even if it is only a fraction of that number, X has been optimized to blast its owner’s posts as widely as possible. People see them and hear about them.
Mr. Musk’s $44 billion purchase of what was then Twitter in 2022 at first seemed to be a mistake, even to him. Then it was perceived as a billionaire’s toy. In last year’s election, it became a weapon. He used his political views to form an alliance with Donald J. Trump, which he then leveraged to put himself into the government expressly to shut down as much of it as possible.
The repercussions are still unfolding. But for Mr. Musk, it was a clear victory. In the name of government efficiency, agencies fired regulators who were in a position to oversee his empire. Mr. Musk now has a much freer hand with his cars and rockets. (An X spokesman did not provide a comment.)
“This is like nothing we’ve ever seen,” said Rick Perlstein, author of a four-volume chronicle of modern American conservatism. Noting Mr. Musk’s frequent use of memes and images, the historian added: “It’s the politics of the nervous system, not the higher functions of the brain. There’s no argument, just fear mongering.”
Moguls in the United States and Britain have owned media with the purpose of exerting influence since the creation of the modern newspaper in the late 19th century. During World War I, Viscount Northcliffe of Britain controlled roughly 40 percent of the morning circulation and 45 percent of the evening circulation there. His properties included The Daily Mail, read by the working class, and The Times, read by the elites.
The viscount, whose name was Alfred Harmsworth, played a crucial role in deposing Prime Minister Herbert Asquith in December 1916. Winston Churchill wrote that the press baron “aspired to exercise a commanding influence on events.” Viscount Northcliffe’s influence on the war was so great that the Germans sent warships to assassinate him in 1917, shelling his seaside home.
In the United States, the control of the media was often more of a local phenomenon. In West Texas in the early 1960s, the ultraconservative Whittenburg family owned The Amarillo Daily News, the NBC television station and the dominant radio station. There were few competing voices.
“If you feed people a far-right media diet, you’ll end up with a population almost exclusively on the far right,” said Jeff Roche, a historian who wrote “The Conservative Frontier,” a forthcoming study of the politics of the region. “Amarillo became the most right-wing city in America.”
“Media ownership and political influence have gone hand in hand since the earliest days of the newspaper industry,” said Simon Potter, a professor of modern history at the University of Bristol who studies mass media. “For just as long, people have worried about this intimate relationship between the media and politics — does it really serve the public interest?”
Behind that question is another: Does their megaphone really give them power, or is it shouting into a void? An American forerunner of Mr. Musk — William Randolph Hearst — provides an answer. Hearst, the owner of the upstart New York Journal, sent correspondents to Cuba in 1897 to cover a war with Spain. His interests were less humanitarian than promotional. He was in a circulation war.
One version of how that story played out showed Hearst as an all-powerful media magnate:
The Journal correspondents discovered there was no war. “Everything is quiet,” Frederic Remington, the paper’s illustrator, cabled Hearst. “There will be no war.” They wanted to leave.
Hearst replied: “Please remain. You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war.” He then agitated in his papers for the war that President William McKinley in short order began. It liberated Cuba and acquired for the United States prized parts of the Spanish empire.
The story was first published in a book by a colleague of Hearst’s named James Creelman and later immortalized in Orson Welles’s “Citizen Kane.” It has been thoroughly debunked over the years. There was no evidence that Hearst ever said he would supply a war. The correspondents found plenty to illustrate. But the anecdote persisted because it showed a mogul so powerful that he could make wars out of nothing.
When Hearst tried to move on from his wartime endeavors to advance his own political career, he stumbled. He secured a seat in the House of Representatives in 1902, but bids to become the mayor of New York faltered twice. He lost a 1906 campaign for New York governor, too.
David Nasaw, who wrote “The Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst,” thinks Mr. Musk’s use of X to rally supporters is as illusory as Hearst’s supposed creation of a war.
“I haven’t seen anywhere that Twitter gets out the MAGA vote,” he said.
Hearst, in Mr. Nasaw’s view, reflected the sentiments of his readers rather than leading them. But the historian agreed that something new was going on with Mr. Musk. Hearst, Ford, even Viscount Northcliffe and the other British press lords before World War II, all had something in common that ultimately limited them.
“They were outside the room, screaming,” Mr. Nasaw said. “Twitter was important for Musk but only to get him inside the room, into the government. He’s unique in being both inside and outside with no constraints on his behavior. There’s never been anything quite like that.”
Tesla sales are plunging. Hearst and Ford could have warned Mr. Musk: Courting controversy with hateful views is bad for your reputation and usually bad for your business, too.
Ford was sued for libel over The Dearborn Independent and became the subject of boycotts. He closed the paper in 1927, although he did not repent his views. A stain lingered.
Hearst went up against President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s, putting his anti-Roosevelt screeds on the front page of his papers. As the editorials became increasingly abusive, readers had to choose: Whom are we going to support, the president or the publisher?
“They chose Roosevelt,” Mr. Nasaw said. “Which meant Hearst eventually destroyed himself and his newspapers.”
Politics
EXCLUSIVE: ICE says El Paso detention facility will stay open under new contractor after $1.2B deal scrapped
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EXCLUSIVE: Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said Camp East Montana in El Paso, Texas will remain open and is undergoing an operational upgrade, Fox News Digital has learned.
“Camp East Montana is NOT closing, quite the opposite,” an ICE spokesperson exclusively told Fox News Digital Tuesday.
“Rather, ICE has contracted with a new provider following Secretary Noem’s termination of the old contract inherited from the Department of War. ICE is always looking at ways to improve our detention facilities to ensure we are providing the best care to illegal aliens in our custody.”
Camp East Montana is photographed Friday, March 6, 2026, in El Paso, Texas. (Omar Ornelas/El Paso Times / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)
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The spokesperson said the new contract will allow the facility to maintain what the agency described as the “highest detention standards” while expanding oversight.
According to ICE, the new contractor will also provide increased on-site medical care, additional staffing and a “PRECISE quality assurance surveillance plan.”
The agency said the updated agreement also strengthens ICE’s direct oversight of operations at the El Paso-area facility.
“Far from closing, Camp East Montana is upgrading,” the spokesperson said.
El Paso immigration facility faces scrutiny but ICE says Camp East Montana is upgrading, not closing, after the $1.2 billion contract termination. (Omar Ornelas/El Paso Times / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)
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The news that the facility will remain open comes after The Washington Post reported that the facility could face closure amid scrutiny over operations.
A document was distributed to ICE staff, the Post reports, indicated that the agency was drafting a letter to terminate the facility’s $1.2 billion contract at an unspecified date.
ICE officials, however, characterized the contract termination as a deliberate effort by Noem to raise standards and improve services.
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Camp East Montana is photographed Friday, March 6, 2026, in El Paso, Texas, as a bus enters the detention center. (Omar Ornelas/El Paso Times / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)
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The facility, located at Fort Bliss in Texas, has been used to house thousands of detainees as part of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement efforts.
ICE did not immediately provide details on the identity of the new contractor or the timeline for full implementation.
WASHINGTON — Russia is emerging as one of the few early economic beneficiaries of the war with Iran, as disruptions to energy infrastructure drive up demand for Russian exports and the world casts its gaze to the Middle East and away from Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
The U.S. and its European counterparts slapped severe sanctions on Russia in March 2022, barely a month into Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The effect was a stranglehold on Russia’s exports, depriving Putin’s war effort of at least $500 billion, experts say. But over the last week, as President Trump’s war in the Middle East choked energy markets worldwide, the White House began easing its restrictions on Moscow.
“It is traitorous conduct for you to help Russia,” California Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Torrance) said on X, demanding the Trump administration reverse course. “Russia is giving intelligence info to Iran that helps Iran target American forces.”
Crude droplets rained over Tehran after Israeli airstrikes decimated oil depots, draping the Iranian capital in a dense smog. Iranian counterattacks have also targeted refineries and oil fields in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. Crude oil prices have surged, and traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has all but ceased, sending energy importers in search of alternate sources.
Those spikes are giving Russia, one of the world’s largest oil and gas exporters, a rare advantage. After spending a decade as the world’s most sanctioned nation over his aggression in Ukraine, Putin is finally starting to regain some leverage in global markets.
“In the current economic situation, if we refocus now on those markets that need increased supplies, we can gain a foothold there,” Putin said at a meeting at the Kremlin on Monday, according to Russian state media. “It’s important for Russian energy companies to take advantage of the current situation.”
On March 4, the Treasury Department issued a temporary 30-day waiver allowing Indian refiners to purchase Russian oil. The appeal by the Trump administration was described as a way to ease demand for Mideast oil, but was criticized as a reversal of sanctions placed against Putin meant to deny him the capital needed to fund his occupation of eastern Ukraine.
Now, Moscow is poised to press that advantage further, after Trump said Monday he will further lift sanctions on oil-producing countries to ease the trade friction and reintroduce additional oil and gas supplies. The only countries with U.S. oil sanctions are Russia, Iran and Venezuela.
“So, we have sanctions on some countries. We’re going to take those sanctions off until this straightens out,” Trump said at a news conference at his golf club in Doral, Fla. “Then, who knows, maybe we won’t have to put them on — they’ll be so much peace.”
The surprise concession to Moscow comes as reports suggest Russia is assisting Iran in targeting U.S. personnel.
Trump’s announcement followed an unscheduled hourlong call with Putin about the situation in the Middle East.
The war has also set the stage for Russia to make gains in Ukraine, as hostilities draw the global spotlight away from Kyiv and its struggle to hold back the bigger Russian army. U.S.-brokered talks between the two adversaries have been sidelined as Washington shifts focus to its war in Iran.
“At the moment, the partners’ priority and all attention are focused on the situation around Iran,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on X. “We see that the Russians are now trying to manipulate the situation in the Middle East and the Gulf region to the benefit of their aggression.”
Putin is unlikely to intervene militarily on Iran’s behalf, according to Robert English, an international foreign policy expert at USC. Instead, Putin is expected to play his position carefully, reap the economic rewards, and keep focused firmly on Ukraine at a time when key air defense systems are diverted from Ukraine to the Persian Gulf.
“Russia is winning the Iran-U.S.-Israel war, at least so far. Oil and natural gas prices have soared, filling Putin’s Ukraine war chest,” he said. “Russia is gathering forces for a big spring offensive in Eastern Ukraine, and it’s not even front-page news.”
Ukraine has dispatched drone interceptors and ordered its anti-drone experts to pivot from their war with Russia to help Western allies help intercept Iranian attacks. Zelensky’s allegiance may not pay off, English said.
“When will Ukraine see the benefits of helping the U.S. with anti-drone technology? No time soon, apparently,” he said.
Even several weeks of interruption in Gulf energy supplies could bring the largest windfall to Russia, the Associated Press reported, citing energy analysts.
The economic turmoil caused by the war has exposed vulnerabilities in Europe’s energy system, particularly its lingering dependence on Russian fuel.
Despite sanctions, the European Union remains a major purchaser of Russian natural gas and crude oil. Russian gas accounted for approximately 19% of E.U. gas imports in 2025. Allied Europeans have agreed to completely stop importing Russian liquefied natural gas, oil and pipeline gas by late 2027.
Putin expressed no desire Monday to rescue the European market now that U.S.-Israeli escalations and Iranian retaliation have choked oil production and shipping. The Russian president instead proposed to divert volumes away from the European market “to more promising areas” like the Asia-Pacific region, Slovakia and Hungary, which he said were “reliable counterparties.”
European leaders have been criticized for being “stunned, sidelined, and disunited” since hostilities began in late February. Excluded from the initial military planning by the U.S. and Israel, Europe entered the conflict with gas storage at only 30% capacity, the lowest levels in years. Instead of bold action, English said, European leaders have quarreled over internal divisions and rivalries.
“Sky-high energy prices are the underlying cause of many of these frictions, as Europe struggles now more than ever to find affordable alternatives to the cheap Russian petroleum,” English said.
Antonio Costa, president of the European Council, told European leaders in Brussels on Tuesday that rising energy prices and the world’s shifting attention risk strengthening the Kremlin at a critical moment in the war in Ukraine.
“So far, there is only one winner in this war,” Costa said. “Russia.”
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President Donald Trump is taking his feud with Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., to the libertarian lawmaker’s home turf on Wednesday.
Trump is expected to hold an event in Hebron, Kentucky, on Wednesday, the Republican Party of Kentucky announced on social media Monday. It’s located in the northern part of the state’s 4th Congressional District, which Massie represents.
Massie’s primary rival, Ed Gallrein, will attend the Hebron event, his campaign confirmed to Fox News Digital on Tuesday, while deferring all other questions on the matter to the White House.
Massie himself will miss the event due to a previously scheduled official engagement, his spokesperson told Fox News Digital.
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President Donald Trump will be visiting Rep. Thomas Massie’s congressional district on Wednesday. (Win McNamee/Getty Images; Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)
When asked about the visit, White House spokeswoman Liz Huston told Fox News Digital, “President Trump will visit the great states of Ohio and Kentucky on Wednesday to tout his economic victories and detail his Administration’s aggressive, ongoing efforts to lower prices and make America more affordable.”
The president has thrown his considerable influence behind Gallrein to unseat Massie after the GOP lawmaker publicly defied Trump on multiple occasions.
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Massie most recently was one of two House Republicans to vote to stop Trump’s joint operation in Iran with Israel, though the legislation was successfully blocked by the majority of GOP lawmakers and a handful of Democrats.
Ed Gallrein, left, seen with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office at the White House. (Ed Gallrein congressional campaign)
He was also one of two Republicans to vote against Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” last year.
Trump in turn has hurled a slew of personal attacks against Massie, including calling him “weak and pathetic” in a statement endorsing Gallrein in October.
“He only votes against the Republican Party, making life very easy for the Radical Left. Unlike ‘lightweight’ Massie, a totally ineffective LOSER who has failed us so badly, CAPTAIN ED GALLREIN IS A WINNER WHO WILL NOT LET YOU DOWN,” Trump posted on Truth Social at the time, one of numerous criticisms targeting the Kentucky Republican through the years.
He called Massie the “worst Republican congressman” in July amid Massie’s bipartisan push to force the Department of Justice (DOJ) to release its files on Jeffrey Epstein.
Then-Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia, Rep. Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, and Rep. Ro Khanna, a Democrat from California, during a news conference outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025. (Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
But Massie has so far appeared to defy political gravity despite making political enemies out of both Trump and House GOP leaders.
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He handily defeated multiple primary challengers in 2024 and 2022, despite public feuds with Trump, and has served his district since 2012.
Gallrein is a retired Navy SEAL and farmer who launched his campaign days after Trump made his endorsement. Their primary election day is May 19.
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