They're genuinely afraid of getting sued by him. Media Matters had mass layoffs. GARM just shut down. It's not usual nuisance suit stuff, it's screw you I have more money to burn on this than you do. Musk abuses state power to censor people, full stop. And it works. The chilling effect is real.

If we ever get meaning anti-slapp, it's going to be colloquially known as "the Musk rule."

Well yeah but I'm not convinced this is much different than the Apple events that journalists used to applaud and then write universally positive stories about mid product announcements

They could just not write about him. That's an option.

That's an excuse for not calling him a liar. It's not even a flimsy excuse for propagating his lies. There's nothing he can do about them just ignoring him

For a major media outlet to publish any strongly negative story about Musk with any sort of factual detail in it is taking coin toss on being out seven, possibly eight figures on legal fees and a case dragging on for several years even if they ultimately win, as they almost certainly will.