Inverted Power Structure

Our elite publications will still be fretting about imagined intolerance of 19-year-olds in universities instead of the explicit bigotries of the most powerful people in the world. If you're one of the lads, they let you do it.

Nobody made the New York Times invite Musk on stage, and no one made them then overlook the "news" that was actually made, even though the point of such an event is, actually, to make news.

They had scripted the personal redemption arc and they weren't going to back down.  

The New York Times says Musk apologized, but doesn't note that the apology was followed up by a repetition and elaboration of what he was supposedly apologizing for.