Ronan Farrow says his Musk post drew 8 million views, and his post on Musk's rival drew 40 million

When investigative reporter Ronan Farrow was asked how Elon Musk affects everyday life, he pointed to the information system many people use. Farrow, a writer for The New Yorker who helped produce a new documentary called Musk, said attention should go to who owns the platform where reporting circulates.

“We are living in information systems that are frequently being manipulated to suit the whims and business objectives of very powerful individuals that don't have a lot of accountability around them,” Farrow argues.

He points to the view counts on his own posts on X, Musk’s social media platform. This past April, Farrow published tough reporting in The New Yorker on Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT and a rival of Musk’s. Farrow says the key post about that work drew about 40 million views.

By comparison, a similar post about his tough reporting on Musk drew about 8 million views. Farrow believes the gap reflects Musk’s amplification of the Altman work, although he did not present internal company data proving how reach was affected.

Farrow says Musk called him “against the people and a puppet of the establishment” over the Musk reporting, while for reporting on someone he did not like, Musk posted that work nonstop and amplified it "in not always transparent ways."

Farrow acknowledges that money in politics is a broader, bipartisan issue. But he argues Musk is "a particularly acute example," a businessman with ventures in space, artificial intelligence, electric vehicles, and even flying cars who also owns the platform. His warning is that readers should know the system itself can be steered by its owner.