One of the more intolerable figures in media is self-proclaimed disinformation expert for NBC/MSNBC, Ben Collins. His proclaimed position covering “the dystopian beat” must be made in irony, as he regularly dispenses his own brand of misinformation, usually delivered with contempt and unearned condescension. It was this kind of work that saw him land with a well-earned top-10 position on our end of the year Townhall 50 list of worst media performers.
In the past few weeks Collins has begun to show curious signs that he might be unraveling. The man has been a loud opponent of Elon Musk ever since the billionaire took over X-itter, and his obsessiveness has become a sign of a media figure losing his grip. Last December NBC even suspended Collins for a time, yanking him off his usual beat of covering X-itter. In keeping with his brand he just delivered a completely unhinged report on Musk that defies being called “journalism”, but first we need to set the stage a bit.
Last month Collins sent out a cryptic request of sorts for Elon Musk to respond to an email Ben sent to the titan, with a 16 hour time limit. This was followed by a string of other similar requests, each becoming more desperate for attention as he hinted at breaking a huge story about Musk. After a day people began to badger Collins to deliver on his promised entry, but nothing was forthcoming. Then he put up another quixotic post, alluding to him quitting the business at some point in the future, with no firm explanation. It mostly generated risible responses.
We may have finally received this touted explosive entry from Ben, and frankly…it is a sheer bafflement. The piece came out on Monday and after looking it over I had to step back and contemplate things. It seemed both so out of sorts but also so blatantly wrongheaded that it could not be what I was reading. So I have been ruminating over it and yes…this is in fact a mess of significant proportions. Collins gets his central thesis 180 degrees out of phase, all while claiming he has exposed the blueprint for Musk’s acquisition of (then) Twitter.
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There is a lot to unfold, but this is not difficult to follow. I took this long on the analysis because it seems so obvious what was behind the item Collins cites as his source that there was no way he actually missed the point entirely. Yet, that is exactly what happened. So, here it is.
In his piece entitled “What Was Elon Musk’s Plan For Twitter?”, Collins claims a detail unearthed in court records regarding his purchse of the social platform reveal that Musk was compelled to not only buy the site but then execute a particular plan that has led to what the site is today - something in Ben’s estimation is a nefarious outlet of uninhibited hate and intolerance. Collins has long claimed to be leaving the site, probably for pastures such as Meta’s “Threads”. (As that site has failed to blossom Collins is in the position of a preteen who threatens to run away from home, but has not plotted on what to do after stepping through the front door.
This featured nugget from the court documents was a series of text messages delivered to Musk by an unknown sender. In it, the anonymous source sent an article to him, one that supposedly laid out a business plan for Musk to follow once his acquisition was completed. As Collins states, “many of the decisions Musk made after he bought Twitter appear to have closely followed that road map.”
The article being referenced is from Revolver, written anonymously, and in it are a number of rather wild proclamations. But specifically Ben announces that a 4-step plan in this piece is what Musk has in fact executed since his purchase. It goes as follows:
Blame the platform for its users.
Coordinated pressure campaign
Exodus of the Bluechecks
Deplatforming
Collins expounds on things further, attempting to illustrate how this “roadmap” has in fact been followed by Musk, leading to the condition of the site today. There are a number of glaring problems within this piece, but one in particular is asupremely major flaw that not only disqualifies the entire premise, but it displays Collins overlooking something that is both so significant and so basic that you have to question his career as a journalist. First the general flaws.
Each of these is rather problematic journalistically, and together form enough of a cloud that this should have been recalibrated in the editing process. That Collins went forward with this, and that any editors did not hit the PAUSE button, indicates enough of a problem. But this only leads to the massive failure seen from Collins in this piece. It concerns the very premise of this article, the central aspect of his entire piece – that 4-step roadmap allegedly followed ardently by the billionaire Musk.
While this plot does in fact appear in the Revolver article, Collins completely misses why it is in the piece. Beattie (or whomever wrote this) was firmly behind the idea of Musk opening free speech back up on Twitter. But the writer goes on to explain that this will pose a direct threat to a number of power bases in this country.
Then the writer explains that those institutions would not sit back and simply allow this to transpire. They would be compelled to take action against Musk and his efforts.
Then the four stages listed above - and by Collins - are enumerated and explained in detail how those would be enforced. This means one thing:
What Collins claimed was the roadmap that Musk followed is instead the reprisal scenario that are predicted to be used AGAINST Musk!
This is so astoundingly inaccurate by Collins that it boggles the mind to contemplate how he got here. He claims an anonymous piece inspired Musk’s actions, when his evidence says the polar opposite – it was the perceived plot to stop Musk by outside forces. And making this glaring fumble of journalism all the more laughable, Collins announces that he spent a voluminous amount of time putting this together.
He spent a few months building this piece? A few months?! Wow. You know what Ben? Maybe that plan you announced that has you walking away from journalism was not such a bad one in the first place. Maybe, as a suggestion, you should move up the timeline…?