Well, let me take the devil's attorney point of view here, you're absolutely right about the manipulation in the news, I think people have to talk more about the good things that happens every day and less about the bad. That's a mental model we have to change in ourselves and help others to do too.
In the other hand, and talking about the incident. No one is perfect, we're all aware of that. Then we have that the relevance of Elon Musk right now is huge, but I think, he could do it before or after the show without any problem, but doing it at that precisely moment.... he must know that this will get him some trouble.
After all, not everyone has the same light point of view about weed, for you maybe it's normal, for other person maybe it isn't, for public opinion it's not something you do in a show!
Then, this is a storm he will pass, he will remain being Elon Musk.