Elon Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, is criticizing the media as being driven by advertising dollars and has called newsrooms “bleak”.

Musk also hinted on Twitter that he might create a website called Pravda that will rate journalists’ credibility. Pravda means ‘truth’ in the Russian language. Musk made this proposal last week, denouncing the press for what he feels is unfair coverage of his electric car company.

Tesla has been fighting negative press for several months over production bottlenecks for its Model 3 sedan, crashes involving its self-driving cars and doubts raised by Wall Street over its cash position.

“The holier-than-thou hypocrisy of big media companies who lay claim to the truth, but publish only enough to sugarcoat the lie, is why the public no longer respects them,” Musk wrote.

“Going to create a site where the public can rate the core truth of any article & track the credibility score over time of each journalist, editor & publication. Thinking of calling it Pravda…”

Musk also pushed back against Reveal, a nonprofit news organization that published an investigative report about safety conditions and injury reporting methods at Tesla factories. Musk claims the reports are "misleading."

Musk has also occasionally indicated he isn't attempting to discredit all media outlets. "[P]lease stop assuming I'm against all journalists," he said in one tweet. "This is not true. Something needs to be done to improve public trust in media."

He also made a donation on Wednesday to PolitiFact, a fact-checking site owned by Poynter, a non-profit school for journalists.

However, during a twitter interaction he accused NBC News reporter Ben Collins of "living in a bubble of self-righteous sanctimony" when Collins asked Musk if he'd ever spent time in a newsroom.

Joshua Topolsky, a veteran tech editor and founder of The Outline, an online publication, asked Musk: "Do you think it's in the interest of powerful people to A: support a free press that exposes their lies, or B: tear it down so their lies are easier to tell?" Topolsky wrote. "Now ask yourself why the polls would look bad."

Musk responded cryptically: "Who do you think *owns* the press? Hello."

When asked to clarify, Musk replied, “Pointing out to aspiring journo & Rodin spokesmodel, Josh Top, who thinks public polls are controlled by “powerful people” that the media is owned by same. Anyone who thought this was anti-Semitic is just revealing their inner bigot. The context is very clear.”

It is interesting to note that Elon Musk’s questioning of media houses and their allegiances comes at a time when India too has been hit by a Cobrapost Sting investigation which reveals the owners’/ CEOs of newspaper and news channels willing to align their reportage to a certain cause for funding thus dealing a serious blow to the country’s fourth pillar.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on May 29, 2018 09:52 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).