X owner Elon Musk heaped scorn on the media as "NPCs" on Tuesday after a slew of headlines painted his much-hyped conversation with former President Trump in a negative light.
NPC is short for "non-player character" in open-world video games and refers to those who aren't controlled by the player. As such, it's become an online pejorative for someone who can't think for themselves or is controlled by someone else.
Musk spent roughly two hours talking to the former president Monday night on Trump's X "Space," where the wide-ranging chat got off to a rocky start when it was plagued with technical issues. Once the conversation got going, anti-Trump critics were quick to find flaws in everything from Trump's rhetoric to Musk’s questions.
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A popular X account shared a collection of articles related to the event that were almost all negative, including USA Today calling it an "unmitigated disaster," CNN comparing it to watching "Grumpy Old Men," MSNBC chalking it up as a "failed" interview," NPR insisting it was "light on news," The New York Times calling it a "two-hour ramble," the Washington Post saying Musk asked "softballs" and The Verge calling it a "tech disaster."
Musk took to X to mock the media coverage of the event.
"A wall of negative headlines was so predictable. They’re such NPCs," Musk wrote to caption the post. "All this does is drive even more people to listen to the conversation themselves and realize how much the legacy media lies to them!"
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Musk has used the insult before, calling the legacy media an "NPC grovel fest" last month in response to glowing coverage of Vice President Kamala Harris.
Many of the headlines Musk took issue with in the wake of the Trump X event were partisan opinion pieces. The post Musk responded to also included a straight-news Fox News article that noted the Harris campaign’s reaction to the Musk-Trump event.
Harris' campaign blasted the event, saying Trump's campaign is in the service of "self-obsessed rich guys who will sell out the middle class."
The wide-ranging conversation between Musk and Trump hit topics including the assassination attempt, U.S. relations with foreign adversaries and the state of the 2024 presidential race.
Fox News Digital's Greg Norman contributed to this report.
