Elon ‘Free Speech’ Musk Suspends Accounts of Journalists Who Criticized Him

Twitter suspended a slew of prominent journalists Thursday, as billionaire and self-avowed free speech enthusiast Elon Musk silenced several of his high-profile critics.

New York Times reporter Ryan Mac, The Washington Post’s Drew Harwell, Mashable’s Matt Binder, CNN reporter Donie O’Sullivan, The Intercept’s Micah Lee, political commenter Keith Olbermann, independent journalist Aaron Rupar, and freelance journalist Tony Webster were removed from the platform.

In response to Breitbart‘s Rebecca Mansour concern over the suspensions, Musk posted, “7 day suspension for doxxing. Some time away from Twitter is good for the soul.”

Musk claimed the bans were a result of “endangering his family.” In a separate tweet, he also claimed that, “They posted my exact real-time location, basically assassination coordinates, in (obvious) direct violation of Twitter terms of service.” There is no evidence the journalists endangered Musk or his family in any way.

The journalists, however, share a common thread of critical coverage of Musk and his management and policy decisions following his October takeover of Twitter, including a recent controversy over Twitter shutting down an account that tracked Musk’s private jet. In a retroactive change to Twitter’s content moderation policy, Musk announced that any instances of posting real-time location data would be treated as a form of doxxing, and result in a suspension of the account. Musk attempted to link developer Jack Sweeney’s flight tracking data project to an incident in which he claims an individual followed a car carrying his son. No evidence has come to light that the individual was motivated by or gathered information from Sweeney’s account. Nevertheless, Musk threatened legal action against him.

“I was banned on Thursday night immediately after sharing a screenshot from CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan moments after he was suspended,” Binder told Rolling Stone. “The screenshot was an official LAPD statement regarding the incident Elon Musk was tweeting out about last night which led him to suspending ElonJet and its creator Jack Sweeney. I did not share any location data, as per Twitter’s new terms. Nor did I share any links to ElonJet or other location tracking accounts. I have been highly critical of Musk but never broke any of Twitter’s listed policies.”

The Times criticized Musk for suspending Mac. “Tonight’s suspension of the Twitter accounts of a number of prominent journalists, including The New York Times’s Ryan Mac, is questionable and unfortunate,” Charlie Stadtlander, the newspaper’s Director of External Communications said in a statement to Rolling Stone. “Neither The Times nor Ryan have received any explanation about why this occurred. We hope that all of the journalists’ accounts are reinstated and that Twitter provides a satisfying explanation for this action.”

In addition to Musk’s critics, Twitter is also going after its business rivals, suspending competitor Mastodon’s Twitter account on Thursday. The moves to silence critics and rivals follows Musk’s efforts to paint himself as a “free speech” advocate pushing back on the evils of cancel culture. He has tweeted catchphrases like “Sunlight is the best disinfectant” and “Transparency is the key to trust.” In April, he memorably posted, “I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means.”

The tweet was followed by further clarification, as Musk said that any non-government action to censor or moderate platforms went against “the will of the people.”

Now that Musk holds the keys to the Twitter kingdom, however, he seems to have found some speech — namely, criticism of him by anyone whose soap box rivals his own — to be out of bounds.