Elon Musk and the Meaning of ‘Off the Record’

The latest illustration of this disconnect comes in the form of an email exchange between Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, and Ryan Mac, a BuzzFeed reporter. Earlier this summer, BuzzFeed, along with many other media organizations, covered a head-scratching spectacle that involved Musk, a British diver, and a team of young soccer players trapped in a cave in Thailand. The diver, Vern Unsworth, had made fun of Musk’s attempts to aid in rescue efforts of the soccer team, via a small submarine his engineers built and flew to the site. Musk responded by calling Unsworth a “pedo guy” on Twitter, but apologized soon after.

Last week, Musk seemed to backtrack on his remorse, suggesting it was “strange” that Unsworth hadn’t sued him yet. But Unsworth’s lawyer had reportedly warned Musk that a libel lawsuit was imminent, so Mac emailed Musk for comment. “Off the record,” Musk wrote in an email. “I suggest that you call people you know in Thailand, find out what’s actually going on and stop defending child rapists.”

BuzzFeed prepared to publish the message in full. When Musk realized this would happen, he sent this to Mac:

Off the record

We haven’t had a conversation at all. I sent you an off the record email, which very clearly and unambiguously said “off the record.” If you want to publish off-the-record comments and destroy your journalistic credibility, that’s up to you.

As for answering more questions, I would be happy to do so, but not with someone who just told me that they will not honor accepted rules of journalism.

I can see how, on the surface, and if a reader is not familiar with the minutiae of journalistic ethics—guidelines that reporters themselves frequently revisit to better execute their trade—this exchange looks like a reporter willfully violating one of the most important tenets of journalism. When sources tell reporters they want something “off the record,” there’s little ambiguity in the statement. Don’t print that.

But the way Musk uses it here—the way many people who communicate with reporters do, particularly in politics—suggests he believes that “off the record” is something akin to a protective talisman, one that, when invoked, both commands the reporter and protects the source.

And that’s not how it works.

“Every discussion with a reporter is in some sense a prearranged agreement, whether on the record, on background, or off the record,” explains Adam L. Penenberg, a professor in New York University’s journalism program. “On the record” means anything the source says can be published; “on background” means the information can be published without giving away the source’s name; and “off the record” means the reporter can’t print what the source told them (they can, however, try to verify or corroborate that information with a different source).

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