Nick Shirley Asks Elon Musk for a Job at X, Says Reporting Is ‘Becoming Nearly Too Dangerous’

Shirley publicly announced Sunday that he would like to join X, the social media company Musk owns, explaining that it is “becoming nearly too dangerous” for him to report. He made the pitch in response to a company employee who said X was hiring someone to “help bring more great creators” to the platform.

“I’d like to work for X, it’s becoming nearly too dangerous for me to even film anymore,” Shirley wrote. “I understand the platform just as much as anyone from a creator perspective and believe in the mission of X. Let’s make it happen.” He capped off his post with a handshake emoji.

The request comes after a rough stretch for the 24-year-old reporter. Over the last year, Shirley has gotten into some hair situations, to put it mildly. In one incident, he was “jumped” by suspected fraudsters on Canal Street in New York City. In another, he was chased by a knife-wielding maniac who was livid over Shirley’s reporting on the surge of North African men into the Spanish province of Ceuta last month.

Shirley rocketed to national attention in late 2025, when his report on bogus daycare centers in Minnesota went viral. The video racked up about 90 million views on X in the two days after it was posted. Musk endorsed the report and said Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, should be prosecuted for allowing daycare fraudsters to rip off the taxpayer.

But the spotlight came at a price. Shirley told Fox News in May that the report made him much less safe.

“Because of what the left-wing media did to me when I exposed this broad, even Gov. Tim Walz called me a white supremacist and all these other people called me racist, which is completely not true,” Shirley said. “But the radical left now believes that, so now I have a target on my back.”

Shirley’s message to Musk’s company was direct. He says he understands the platform as well as anyone from a creator’s perspective, believes in X’s mission, and is ready to get to work. Whether X takes him up on the offer remains to be seen, but Shirley made his interest plain in a post that ended with a handshake emoji and a simple line: “Let’s make it happen.”