Elon Musk argued with reporters on Twitter Spaces about suspending multiple high-profile journalists' accounts — hear the full exchange, including the moment he abruptly left
- On Thursday, Twitter suspended the accounts of multiple high-profile journalists who cover owner Elon Musk.
- Elon Musk later dropped into Twitter Spaces, where reporters asked why the accounts were suspended. He spoke a few times before abruptly leaving.
Twitter suspended the accounts of several high-profile journalists late Thursday, and a Twitter Spaces discussion on the matter, featuring Elon Musk himself, followed shortly after.
Multiple reporters, many of whom cover tech, including Musk and Twitter, saw their Twitter accounts suspended without warning or explanation on Thursday. They include Ryan Mac of The New York Times, Donie O'Sullivan of CNN, Drew Harwell of The Washington Post, Matt Binder of Mashable, Micah Flee of The Intercept, Steve Herman of Voice of America, and independent journalists Aaron Rupar, Keith Olbermann, and Tony Webster.
Several of them had recently tweeted about the @ElonJet Twitter account, which is run by college student Jack Sweeney and tracks flights by Musk's private jet using public flight data available online. Twitter suspended that account on Wednesday despite Musk, who has called himself a free-speech absolutist, tweeting in November that he wouldn't do so.
Musk said on Wednesday, "Any account doxxing real-time location info of anyone will be suspended, as it is a physical safety violation. This includes posting links to sites with real-time location info."
Despite the suspensions, the reporters were still able to use Twitter Spaces. Several of the reporters, along with Jack Sweeney of the @ElonJet account, gathered in a Spaces call hosted by BuzzFeed News tech reporter Katie Notopoulos to discuss the suspensions, and Musk himself briefly joined the call. When pressed for answers about the suspensions, Musk repeatedly said, "You dox, you get suspended." He abruptly left later.
Twitter Spaces later stopped working, which Musk says happened to fix a "legacy bug," but several Twitter users recorded the exchange between Musk and the reporters. You can watch it here: