‘People have spoken’: Musk lifts Twitter suspensions on journalists for alleged ‘doxxing’

Billionaire mogul Elon Musk restored some of the Twitter accounts of a handful of journalists suspended from the platform he alleged disseminated information about his personal location.

Initially, Musk noted that they would be booted for about seven days, but the newly announced Twitter CEO capitulated after conducting multiple polls to gauge whether the accounts should be freed from Twitter jail and after facing fierce backlash over the suspensions.

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“The people have spoken. Accounts who doxxed my location will have their suspension lifted now,” Musk tweeted.

The suspensions came after Musk clamped down and permanently suspended all of the accounts run by a teenager who managed @elonjet, which attempted to track the movements of Musk’s private plane. He initially maintained that the main account, @elonjet, would be allowed to operate, but then claimed a “crazy stalker” was following a car transporting his son “Lil X,” which prompted the apparent reversal.

Musk alleged the suspended reporters tweeted information about @elonjet that helped spread his location, but some of the suspended individuals appeared to deny that or disputed his characterization of doxxing. The suspensions drew backlash and scrutiny from officials in the European Union and media outlets such as CNN threatened to reassess their relationship with Twitter.

The suspended reporters include Ryan Mac of the New York Times, Donie O’Sullivan of CNN, Drew Harwell of the Washington Post, Matt Binder of Mashable, Micah Lee of the Intercept, Steve Herman of Voice of America, Linette Lopez of Business Insider, as well as independent journalists Aaron Rupar, Keith Olbermann, and Tony Webster.

“I want to thank everyone for all the support and kind words over the past day and some change. I was pretty bummed about getting suspended initially but quickly realized it’d be fine because I’m blessed to have an amazing online community. Seriously, I appreciate it a lot. Cheers,” Rupar tweeted after his account was restored.

As of Saturday morning, Olbermann’s and Lopez’s accounts appeared to remain suspended. Olbermann has used his dog’s account to circumvent the suspension. At least eight accounts that had been suspended appeared active, though not all of the reporters tweeted by Saturday morning.

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The suspensions drew flack from some of Musk’s allies such as journalist Bari Weiss and author Michael Shellenberger, who alongside Matt Taibbi, had been reporting on the so-called Twitter Files detailing internal company deliberations about content moderation and public controversies.

“Rather than rigorously pursuing truth, you are virtue-signaling to show that you are ‘good’ in the eyes of media elite to keep one foot in both worlds,” Musk clapped back to a Weiss tweet critical of the suspension spree.