The Washington Post scrapped an ad calling for President Donald Trump to “fire Elon Musk” that was slated to run in some of its Tuesday print editions, according to one of the organizations that ordered the ad.
Advocacy group Common Cause had agreed to pay $115,000 to the Post to run an ad criticizing billionaire Elon Musk wrapped around the newspapers and a similar ad inside the paper, the organization told Business Insider.
The ads are part of a bigger campaign by Common Cause called “Fire Elon Musk,” urging people to sign a petition calling for Musk’s removal as the head of the new Department of Government Efficiency.
The ad, which Common Cause later posted on its website, features Elon Musk laughing behind an image of the White House, and says in large text, “Who’s running this country: Donald Trump or Elon Musk?”
Smaller text below the image states that the Tesla CEO “has created chaos and confusion and put our livelihoods at risk” and notes that “the Constitution only allows for one president at a time.”
The group said the Post initially approved the nature of the ad but that the Post informed Common Cause on Friday of its decision to drop the wrap ad from publication without explanation.
The Post said it would allow Common Cause to run its similar ad inside the paper, per the organization, but Common Cause declined.
“It’s deeply concerning that our ad was censored and rejected without a valid reason,” said Virginia Kase Solomón, Common Cause’s president and CEO, and Margaret Huang, Southern Poverty Law Center’s president and CEO, in a joint statement. Common Cause planned to pay for the ads in collaboration with the Southern Poverty Law Center Action Fund.
“We believe this is limiting our freedom of expression at a critical time in our nation’s history. This seems to show the Washington Post is feeling pressure to cover the news a certain way,” Kase Solomón and Huang said.
The Post declined to comment on its internal decisions about advertising campaigns. Its advertising guidelines state that the Post “accepts all types of advertising and does not decline advertising unless there is a compelling reason to do so,” but “nonetheless reserves the right to position, revise, or refuse to publish any advertisement.”
The ads are part of a bigger campaign by Common Cause called “Fire Elon Musk,” urging people to sign a petition calling for Musk’s removal as the head of DOGE. The group says it’s collected 60,000 signatures and organized thousands of calls to congressional representatives.
Musk, the world’s richest person, runs several companies including X, SpaceX, The Boring Company, and Tesla. He’s now leading DOGE, the new commission that aims to slash federal spending and cut regulations.
The Post’s decision to pull the ad comes just a month after Elon Musk nodded at a friendship with the outlet’s billionaire owner, Jeff Bezos, in a series of X posts. Musk and Bezos own competing companies, SpaceX and Blue Origin, respectively, and have exchanged playful jabs for years.
In January posts, Musk and Bezos congratulated each other on their companies’ rocket launches, and Musk posted clips from the 2008 comedy “Step Brothers,” one of which showed its characters asking, “Did we just become best friends?”
Here are the ads that Common Cause said it planned to run in the Washington Post:
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