Elon Musk Says Wall Street “Giving Foot Massages To A Criminal”

Elon Musk Calls Out The Wall Street Journal For Its Latest Coverage Of SBF.

Elon Musk looks to be on the warpath with mainstream media for its coverage of SBF in the wake of the FTX collapse and revelations of gross mismanagement of client and corporate funds indicative of fraud.

In a tweet yesterday, Elon Musk called out the Wall Street Journal for its latest coverage of embattled FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried who he described as a “criminal.”

“WSJ giving foot massages to a criminal,” Musk wrote.

WSJ giving foot massages to a criminal

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 24, 2022

The WSJ article was initially titled “Sam Bankman-Fried’s Plans to Save the World Went Down In Flames.” While admitting to SBF’s criminal and fraudulent practices, mind you, without using those words, it paints the crypto founder as one who had good plans but stumbled on his way. It highlights initiatives the erstwhile crypto billionaire was funding and the peril they now face as their grants could come under scrutiny and future funding shrouded by uncertainty.

To its credit, it also shows that the contagion from the FTX collapse is wide-reaching and extends beyond just crypto. However, one can describe the article as inconsistent or intellectually dishonest. While its title and much of the story imply that SBF had good intentions, at the very end, it also factors in a statement from the SBF founder in a recent Vox interview where he admits that he only aligned with ideas like effective altruism for clout.

Unsurprisingly, like much of the mainstream media coverage of SBF and the FTX collapse in recent times, it has drawn a lot of backlash and sarcasm from the crypto community. Several users have pointed out that they could make saints of historical villains like Adolf Hitler and Pablo Escobar with the same reasoning. One user asserted that the embattled crypto founder had a better propaganda machine than North Korea.

“It was never a plan to save the world,” MicroStrategy chief and Bitcoin evangelist Michael Saylor wrote after highlighting SBF’s criminal practices. “It was a plan to steal the world.”

Last week, the crypto community expressed outrage at what it described as a puff piece on the FTX founder by the New York Times. Moreover, the embattled crypto founder has confirmed that he will go on an interview with NYT and CNBC journalist Andrew Sorkin at an NYT event next Wednesday in the US. 

FTX, once one of the largest crypto exchanges in the world, valued at $32 billion at its peak, collapsed early this month after a bank run confirmed reports of financial misconduct within the exchange. The crypto community continues to question why the crypto founder is yet to face the law in light of recent revelations.