In February, Common Cause ran an ad in The Washington Post criticizing Elon Musk’s outsized role in the Trump administration. As a “special government employee,” Musk was empowered to illegally fire millions and fundamentally reshape the federal government. Our editorial posed an obvious question: Who is in charge of our country? The weekend before the ad was set to print, the billionaire-owned paper backtracked and pulled it from publication at the last minute, a move that raised concerns about free speech and the ability of institutional media to hold power — and billionaires — to account.
A free press is critical to our democracy, and we must do everything in our power to preserve it. But what happens when billionaires and megarich corporations own and operate most channels of communication and information sharing? Americans are finding out in real time.
