SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — Elon Musk has launched a Twitter tirade against Apple on the same day he was called out by CNN for tweeting a screencap of a headline and image from a parody site. The image, which appears to be a crude photoshop involving photos of Musk and CNN Anchor, Don Lemon, accompanied by the headline “CNN: Elon Musk could threaten free speech on Twitter by literally allowing people to speak freely,” was generated by the satirical outlet, Genusius Times, according to the Associated Press.
CNN’s communications team responded to Musk’s tweet, saying “This headline never appeared on CNN. Be better.” The tweet was also flagged by Twitter’s own Community Notes moderation platform, which added a caption saying “the screencap in this image is not real and originated from a satirical website. CNN aired no such report about Musk ‘threatening free speech.'”
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The caption included a link to an AP story from April that stated that the image was “digitally altered to add the text. The image purporting to be from a CNN broadcast originated on a satirical website.”
Genesius Times, the website the image originated on, calls itself “the most reliable source of fake news on the planet,” according to AP.
Musk responded to his own tweet, tagging the Community Notes account, and adding “FTW!”, a common acronym for “for the win.” He also responded to CNN’s communications team, tweeting “Lmaoooo.”
Elon vs. Apple
In a possibly related tweet, Musk later Tweeted that “Apple has mostly stopped advertising on Twitter,” adding, “Do they hate free speech in America?” In a series of subsequent tweets, the Tesla CEO who acquired Twitter last month went on to criticize Apple on a number of things.
Among other things, Musk accused the tech company of censorship, being a duopoly and of being politically biased. Musk also claimed that Apple had threatened to withhold Twitter from its App Store.