I was responding specifically to your premise that people's opinions on Musk are shaped by reporting rather than their knowledge of Musk's actions and character

I was responding specifically to your premise that people's opinions on Musk are shaped by reporting rather than their knowledge of Musk's actions and character. In expressing this, you were dismissing their agency and suggesting they were simply empty vessels into which opinions had been poured. In other words, you were asserting they had no ability to form an opinion.