Chris Hayes: Musk changes to X 'massively destructive' to how people see the news

MSNBC host Chris Hays tore into billionaire Elon Musk and warned against what he characterized as the "massively destructive" effect he is having on the information business.

"Oh, it’s just massively destructive. It’s pollution, pure pollution," Hayes said during a conversation with the media outlet Semafor.

Hayes referenced Musk's promotion of an unfounded theory about the attack on former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband Paul as a "disgusting lie" that "even Republican lawmakers would joke about."

Musk has since purchasing X in 2022 made major changes to the platform's algorithms and content moderation policies.

He has at the same time vowed to use X to take on mainstream media outlets for advertising dollars and audience share, decrying what he and many conservatives call a longstanding left-leaning bias from corporate media companies.

"You are the media now," Musk will often tell X users, a credo Hayes scoffed as during his conversation with Semafor.

"Congratulations, you’ve reinvented medieval village rumor-mongering," the cable news host said. "Yes, you’re the media now. We’ve had that before. It’s the attentional upside of news without all the work beneath it. You see the pirating of stories from other places without the actual work to make sure things are true."

The widespread circulation of unvetted content is dangerous for the public discourse, Hayes argued.

"There are tons of people, subject matter experts, who comment without a media filter," he said of X. "That’s not what this is. What his site now selects for is people ripping off stuff and lying."

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