Washington Post opted not to publish anti-Musk ad campaign after initially being open

CNN — The Washington Post scrapped an upcoming print ad from a pair of advocacy groups calling for the firing of Elon Musk as head of the Department of Government Efficiency. The nixed wrap ad — one of two ads purchased for $115,000 by Common Cause and the Southern Poverty Law Center Action Fund that were slated to run on Tuesday — shows the White House superimposed over Musk with a bright red backdrop and the caption “Who’s running this country: Donald Trump or Elon Musk?” The wrap adds that Musk has “created chaos and confusion” and “is accountable to no one by himself.” “The Constitution only allows for one president at a time,” the wrap notes. “The interior ad was not a problem.” The second ad, which was slated to appear inside the paper’s physical Tuesday edition, echoes the wrap’s messaging, featuring a full-sized photo of Musk with the caption “no one elected Elon Musk to any office.” Though the Post was amenable to publishing the inside ad, Common Cause told the paper to forget it and walked away. However, the paper’s ad policy specifies that the paper “reserves the right to position, revise, or refuse to publish any Virginia Kase Solomón, Common Cause’s president and chief executive, told CNN the Post’s decision was “concerning,” saying the paper — which uses the slogan “Democracy dies in the darkness” — “seems to have forgotten that democracy also dies when a free press operates from a place of fear or compliance.” “Yet now, we are forced to ask ourselves if The Washington Post — a pillar of investigative journalism during Watergate — is unwilling to challenge those in power,” Solomón said. “At a time when the free press is already under attack, we cannot allow political or corporate influences to dictate what stories get told.” The Post’s decision to cut the wrap, a premium and highly visible ad buy that covers a newspaper and immediately confronts readers, also comes as Trump has directed the White House to end subscriptions for media publishers whose coverage he dislikes, including Politico and the Associated Press.