No, Rachel Maddow did not have a tearful meltdown reading Musk’s tweet about buying MSNBC

On By Littum

With President-elect Donald Trump’s “First friend” Elon Musk tease the possibility with buying liberal cable news channel MSNBC, it was only a matter of time before the X owner’s allies started rallying and suggesting the network’s stars are in freakout mode.

After the billionaire shared another meme about him struggling to resist the “temptation” of buying MSNBC, a short clip of the MSNBC host Rachel Maddow allegedly holding back tears over Musk’s tweet quickly went viral on social media. But no, Maddow didn’t break down and get emotional in the air over the head of “DOGE” who joked about being her new boss.

So how did we get here? Following the news last week that NBC Universal’s parent company, Comcast, is separated MSNBC and half a dozen other cable channels for one separate company called SpinCo, Musk — who has turned X into a MAGA-enhancing right-wing echo chamber — began floating the idea of ​​acquiring the left-leaning network.

In a tweet Friday, Donald Trump Jr. tagged Musk and said he had “funniest idea ever” links to a post that wondered if the new owners of MSNBC “will find that lying non-stop to your audience is a lousy business model.” When asked “how much does it cost,” Musk later added, “The most entertaining outcome, especially if ironic, is most likely,” along with a crying laughing emoji.

MSNBC host Rachel Maddow moderates a media event in 2018.
MSNBC host Rachel Maddow moderates a media event in 2018. (Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

Meanwhile, Trump Jr. and popular podcaster Joe Rogan also trolled MSNBC’s primetime hosts, claiming they were coming after their jobs.

“If you buy MSNBC, I want Rachael Maddow’s job. I want to wear the same outfit and glasses and I want to tell the same lies,” Rogan replied to Musk. “Since this is going to be interesting, I’m going to throw my hat in the ring too. I want to emulate Lawrence O’Donnell…minus the castration of course. It’s a bridge too far,” Trump Jr. added.

Finally, at 1:49 a.m. ET on Sunday, the meme-addicted Tesla executive threw up a photo of a provocatively dressed woman trying to tempt a celibate priest and added the MSNBC logo to the woman. “And lead us not into temptation,” Musk subtitles the post.

Less than an hour after Musk’s late-night tweet, Alex Lorusso — a right-wing social media influencer and executive producer of MAGA “meme lord” Benny Johnson’s podcast — submitted a short video of Maddow getting visibly emotional as he airs Musk’s post. The clip also showed MSNBC running the chyron: “Elon Musk sends dangerous meme.”

Lorusso’s tweet quickly took off, with many social media users believing Maddow was actually crying on air in response to Musk’s tweet and the possibility of the world’s richest man getting MSNBC.

In reality, the video of Maddow choking is off a segment from June 2018 where the MSNBC star struggled to compose herself as she read a breaking story about the Trump administration separating young children from migrant families and placing them in shelters at “tender ages.” Unable to finish reading the story on air, she would then hand it over to her colleague O’Donnell.

While LoRossuo would quickly notice in a follow up tweet that his clip was altered and just a “meme,” that didn’t stop others from mocking Maddow while treating the video as legitimate.

“Watching Rachel Maddow freak out over Elon Musk posting memes about buying MSNBC made my morning,” MAGA influencer Isabella Maria DeLuca tweeted to her 450,000 followers.

“She’s crying because she knows her cash cow is about to end,” one user tweetedwhile another exclaimed: “This is the best thing you’ll see today! @elonmusk is now the proud owner of the most liberal tears, perhaps in history! #thewinningneverstops!”

A community note was eventually added to the clip noting that “the video has been altered” and originally came from “Maddow’s reaction to certain immigration policies under the Trump administration.”

But beyond the memes and altered video clips from Musk and his allies, the question remains whether the X owner is serious about buying MSNBC, the channel that has arguably been the most critical of Trump over the years.

While “Musk’s post should not be ignored” because he announced his purchase of Twitter in a similar fashion, and the online jokes only “increase the anxiety MSNBC staffers feel” after the election, “Comcast has not put a ‘for sale’- sign on MSNBC’s door,” CNN chief media analyst Brian Stelter reported.

“Comcast says the transaction will take about a year. At that point, could someone come in with a bid for MSNBC? It’s complicated,” Stelter added. “‘SpinCo’ is structured as a tax-free spin-off, and immediate divestment of an asset would have tax consequences that could prevent such a sale.