As has come to be the norm lately, Elon Musk is making waves with his leadership decisions over at Twitter. After making the controversial decision to suspend the accounts of a number of journalists for allegedly doxxing him, the CEO is now responding to the backlash by reinstating several of their profiles.
As TMZ reports, the South African shared a statement on Friday (December 16) after polling the app’s users to see if they thought he should unsuspend “accounts who doxxed [his] exact location in real-time.” 58.7% of the votes came in favour of the reporters getting their privileges back in real-time. The remainder (41.3%) felt as though a seven-day penalty would be fair.
The people have spoken.
Accounts who doxxed my location will have their suspension lifted now. https://t.co/MFdXbEQFCe
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 17, 2022
“The people have spoken. Accounts that doxxed my location will have their suspensions lifted now,” Musk wrote yesterday. Among those who he banned were Donie O’Sullivan of CNN and Drew Harwell from the Washington Post.
Additionally, Matt Binder (Mashable), Ryan Mac (New York Times), and Micah Lee (The Intercept) were recipients of Musk’s punishment. The Tesla founder specifically has accused them of disclosing personal details about his whereabouts. Per TMZ, much of the information these journalists use is already publicly available.
Those accused by the 51-year-old have vehemently denied any publishing of his private info. However, they do have some theories as to why he temporarily shut down their profiles in the first place.
The journalists seem to think that Musk is taking offence to their less-than-favourable coverage of him. After he made the decision to suspend reporters, both Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff were quick to put the engineer on blast.
During an online chat that found the father of 10 meeting with those whose accounts he put on hold, it was pointed out that he’s been acting in a hypocritical manner. Previously, Elon criticized Twitter’s bosses for their suppression of the infamous Hunter Biden story.
In response to the call out, the CEO made it plain and clear, “If you dox, you get suspended. End of story, that’s it.” Afterward, he quickly left the conversation.
It seems Elon Musk is facing haters all over as of late. Just last week, he was booed by the crowd at a Dave Chappelle show.
[Via]
