The Washington Post backed out of a “Fire Elon Musk” advertisement that would have called for the termination of the Tesla CEO and SpaceX founder who has gained U.S. governmental authority as the head of DOGE, the advocacy group that co-created the ad said.
A spokesperson for Common Cause, which has been a detractor of Musk, confirmed to USA TODAY that the Post backed out of the ad. The Washington, D.C.-based paper signed a $115,000 agreement with Common Cause and the Southern Poverty Law Center Action Fund to run the ad in Tuesday’s paper, The Hill reported.
After submitting artwork to the Post, Common Cause President Virginia Kase Solomón said she was told they could have the ad inside the paper but not outside as a wrap. “We said ‘thanks, no thanks’ because we had a lot of questions.”
The ad would have covered the front and back page of the Tuesday edition of the Post, while also having a full-page section with the same theme inside the paper, Common Cause said, per The Hill.