Last October, Musk criticized Missy Cummings, a Duke University professor who was hired by the U.S. While Musk's activity on Twitter is attracting new scrutiny because of his deal on Monday to acquire the company, the world's richest person is no stranger to controversy and criticism on the platform. "Musk's pursuit of his normal daily activities on Twitter exacerbate the worst aspects of the site and undercut the good work that folks at Twitter have been doing," said Adam Conner, vice president for technology policy at the Center for American Progress.
Others worried that Twitter's efforts to deal with harassment, misogyny and misinformation might take a backward step under Musk. Katie Harbath, a former public policy director at Meta Platform Inc's Facebook who now leads consultancy Anchor Change, said Musk's criticism of Twitter's content moderation raises concerns that he could overrule recommendations from the team charged with setting policy and procedure.Ī key question, Harbath said, is whether Musk is "going to replace people inside of Twitter with people who go along with his viewpoints." In response to critical comments made in a tweet by social media personality Mike Chernovich about Baker, Musk responded: "Sounds pretty bad."īaker did not immediately respond to Reuters' request for comment. Musk also weighed in on a discussion about Twitter's deputy general counsel, Jim Baker. Musk then tweeted back at Costolo: "What are talking about? I'm just saying Twitter needs to be politically neutral." What's going on? You're making an executive at the company you just bought the target of harassment and threats," Costolo tweeted. Gadde could not be reached for comment.ĭick Costolo, a former chief executive of Twitter, criticized Musk for the move. Representatives for Musk and Twitter did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Twitter's merger agreement with Musk stipulates that Musk can tweet about the deal while it is pending "so long as such Tweets do not disparage the Company or any of its Representatives." There was no indication that Twitter, which inked the deal with Musk after deciding his offer was attractive, would seek to cancel the sale because of his recent criticism. Enjeti described Gadde as "the top censorship advocate at Twitter who famously gaslit the world on Joe Rogan's podcast and censored the Hunter Biden laptop story." Gadde then became the subject of a wave of personal attacks by Twitter users on the platform.