Elon Musk on Thursday shot down a bizarre rumor that he was interested in buying right-wing cable network One America News, distancing himself from the idea less than an hour after it was floated by OAN owner Robert Herring.
The short-lived claim that the billionaire wanted to buy the struggling cable network began Thursday morning, when Herring tweeted that “somebody very close” to Musk had contacted Herring about Musk’s interest in buying the network.
Roughly an hour later, though, Musk threw cold water on the idea that he wanted to buy OAN.
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“Only Twitter,” Musk replied to Herring in a tweet, referencing his attempts to buy the social media giant.
For OAN viewers on Twitter, the idea of Musk purchasing the far-right channel had briefly turned the mogul into the channel’s savior. OAN faces a dire financial future after DirecTV stopped carrying the conspiracy theory-ridden channel on its platform.
“Let us pray…” tweeted one OAN fan responding to Herring’s tweet before Musk dismissed the idea.
It’s not clear whether Herring made up the idea of a Musk purchase himself or was duped by a prankster posing as a Musk associate. Herring and Musk didn’t respond to requests for comment.
