The News
The Wall Street Journal’s editor-in chief Emma Tucker said the paper is committed to covering tech billionaire Elon Musk “seriously,” acknowledging his undeniable political influence in the US.
Responding to Semafor editor-in-chief Ben Smith’s question as to whether Musk’s ability to harm a news brand would deter coverage, Tucker said that “I’m in no doubt that he’s in a position to do that. But again, if that starts to become a consideration, then we will stop doing our, our job.”
“I very much don’t want it to look like there’s some sort agenda here,” Tucker told Semafor’s Innovating to Restore Trust in News Summit in Washington, DC. It’s just that if you think about it, he is the world’s richest man, he’s extremely powerful. He’s right at the heart of government in the most powerful administration in the world... we wouldn’t be doing our jobs if we didn’t cover Musk seriously.”
While it’s important to acknowledge Musk’s “huge achievements” as a businessman, Tucker said, the Journal’s reporters “wouldn’t be doing our jobs if we didn’t cover him seriously.”
Still, Tucker cautioned that it’s too early to say whether what she characterized as a “meltdown” among the US media over the new Trump administration is justified, and that journalists shouldn’t drive that perception: “There’s no room for emotion at the Journal.”
Correction: A previous version of this story misattributed a quote about journalists being afraid to cover Elon Musk to WSJ’s Emma Tucker. The quote was from Semafor’s Ben Smith.
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British-born Tucker joined The Wall Street Journal as its first female editor-in-chief in February 2023 with a mandate to shake up the outlet. That ranged from the relatively superficial — such as scrapping the routine use of honorifics — to the substantive, overseeing mass layoffs and transitioning toward a digital-first ethos in order to reach new audiences beyond the Journal’s aging print subscriber base.
Something seems to be working: Subscriptions are up 6.6% year-on-year. And under Tucker’s editorship, the Journal has gone where other outlets won’t — for example, being the first to report on US President Joe Biden’s mental fitness (to both praise and criticism.) “I’m very glad I didn’t stop to think about [publishing] it, because it was an important piece of journalism,” she told Semafor.