Elon Musk could help slash public media funding, a prominent goal for Scott Perry and other Republicans
As the co-lead of the "Department of Government Efficiency," Musk has proposed eliminating hundreds of millions of dollars in annual funding that’s allocated to PBS and NPR stations.
Sesame Street’s “Sunny Days” may not be as bright if Elon Musk makes good on his proposal to eliminate hundreds of millions of dollars in annual funding that is allocated to PBS and NPR stations — home to Elmo and the gang and popular programs like All Things Considered and Fresh Air with Terry Gross & Tonya Mosley.
Musk is in a unique position to recommend defunding public media, a goal that Republicans, including one Pennsylvania congressman, have been aching to achieve. After he brought clout and millions of dollars in surrogacy to campaign for President-elect Donald Trump in Pennsylvania, Trump appointed Musk to colead the proposed “Department of Government Efficiency” with Vivek Ramaswamy. Given Musk’s standing as the richest man in the world, his influence in Trump’s circle and in the government could pose a greater threat to public media than previous GOP attempts.
National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service are preparing for the effects of funding cuts. After the 2024 election, the leaders at NPR’s biggest member stations circulated a report that stated “it would be unwise to assume that events will play out as they have in the past” in regard to federal funding, the New York Times reported, as PBS was made aware of the situation by political consultants in early December. Station directors in certain states have started lobbying legislators.
WHYY is the Philadelphia region’s PBS/NPR member station, serving 2.9 million households in the Philadelphia area, Delaware, and South Jersey — one of the country’s top 10 markets, as of March, according to the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage. Fresh Air, one of the most well-known NPR programs, is owned and produced by WHYY. It’s unclear how WHYY will be affected by potential cuts or if the station is bracing for any impact. New Jersey also has its own public media network — NJ PBS — which is composed of various outlets, including WNJN.
In a statement to The Inquirer, Gary Bramnick, senior director of marketing communications at WHYY, emphasized the importance of public media for educational content, cultural programming, and news regardless of a consumer’s income or location.
“Supporting diverse audiences, voices and perspectives, Public Media is an invaluable asset to our society, offering a unique blend of services that enrich our lives, supports an engaged civic populace and ultimately strengthens our democracy,” he said Friday. “Investing in public media is an investment in a more informed, engaged, and equitable society.”
A spokesperson for PBS echoed Bramnick’s sentiments in a statement Friday and said PBS is grateful to have bipartisan support in Congress.
“We’ve earned this support from decades of work in local communities: providing all Americans with content they trust; curating a broad range of stories and programs that help citizens understand our past and shape our future; and helping children and families open up worlds of possibilities through educational programming,” the spokesperson said. “PBS stations also ensure that emergency alerts are able to reach everyone who needs to hear them.”
Representatives for NPR did not immediately return a request for comment.
This is not the first time public media has had to prepare its pushback. Republicans have called for slashing federal funding for public media for decades, their main qualm being a perceived liberal bias, the Times reported. In 2020, Trump recommended cutting federal funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which distributes taxpayer dollars to NPR and other public media outlets, to $0 by 2023.
And this year, U.S. Rep. Scott Perry (R., Pa.) and U.S. Sen. John Kennedy (R., La.) introduced the No Propaganda Act to do the same. A spokesperson for Perry, who represents the Harrisburg area, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Musk’s proposal.
“CPB cannot be allowed to keep using your hard-earned tax dollars to push a biased and political agenda that goes against what’s best for Americans,” Perry said in a statement in April.
Bramnick said the CPB has “played a vital role in ensuring a well-informed, diverse, and democratic society.”
Trump’s recommendation four years ago proved unsuccessful and Perry’s bill has been in a House subcommittee since April. And NPR and PBS stations could use several factors to their advantage, including their support of emergency alert systems. The CPB is also funded two years in advance, perhaps making it more difficult for the GOP to take congressional action.
But Musk’s political influence — which recently caused lawmakers to kill and redraft a bipartisan spending deal amid government shutdown negotiations — could provide a potential glimmer of hope for Republicans and present new challenges for public media.
The billionaire has never been shy of expressing his disdain for various media sources, often baselessly suggesting his social media platform, X, as a more trustworthy source for news than accredited news outlets. On Sunday, he said: “Legacy media must die.”
During the 2024 election, Musk often used X to promote misinformation about the integrity of voting in Pennsylvania as well as his pro-Trump rhetoric. Combined with his unwavering loyalty to the president-elect and the creation of America PAC and the Pennsylvania town halls and petitions it sponsored, some Republicans say Musk’s influence helped Trump clinch victory in the battleground state.
Now, Musk has been rewarded with greater authority and access. And it could help Republicans move closer to achieving a longtime goal.