No, Rachel Maddow didn’t break down in tears at Elon Musk’s memes about buying MSNBC

Cable news host Rachel Maddow did not break into tears over memes posted by Elon Musk about buying MSNBC. 

An Instagram video that featured the liberal MSNBC host crying on air was accompanied by the text, "Rachel Maddow MELTS DOWN over Elon Musk posting memes about buying MSNBC." 

In the video, Maddow struggled to speak through tears while the chyron displayed the text, "Elon Musk posts dangerous meme." Maddow asked to "put up the graphic," and the video displayed a photo of a meme Musk recently posted on X about buying MSNBC. 

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The footage is not really Maddow’s reaction to Musk apparently joking about buying MSNBC. The video has been manipulated. It’s from a June 2018 broadcast in which Maddow reacted to news about shelters for young children who were separated from their parents because of then-President Donald Trump’s border policies. 

The video appears to have originated as satire on X. In response to the original X post of the Maddow video, the poster said, "Guys — it’s a meme." 

Other accounts on Instagram, Threads and X — including Sebastian Gorka, whom Trump tapped to be ​​senior director for counterterrorism in his incoming administration — reposted the video without noting it was satire. 

Conservative commentators began joking about Musk acquiring MSNBC around Nov. 22, when Donald Trump Jr. posted on X that he had the "funniest idea ever," quoting a post that said parent company Comcast is "putting MSNBC up for sale." 

"How much does it cost?" Musk, the billionaire X owner and Tesla CEO, replied.

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Threads posts

stated on November 12, 2024 in a Threads post

“It was just Biden and Trump in 2020” general election ballots.

Musk has posted other memes and jokes about buying the liberal news network in the days since. He also reposted another account’s post of the altered video of Maddow crying about Musk’s MSNBC memes, which did not note the video was satire. 

But MSNBC is not "for sale." Comcast has said it plans to spin off its cable networks, including MSNBC, CNBC and USA, into a separate entity. The transition will take about a year, and MSNBC won’t necessarily be up for sale under the new company, CNN Chief Media Analyst Brian Stelter wrote Nov. 25. 

"Executives involved with the spinoff say they intend to be predators, not prey — buying new channels, not selling off old ones bit by bit," Stelter wrote. 

Instagram posts said Maddow cried over Musk posting memes about buying MSNBC, the cable television news network that hosts her show. 

The video is not recent — it shows Maddow’s reaction to news about Trump’s border policy from 2018. The footage has been manipulated with text and pictures, and it originated as satire. 

We rate the claim False.