Elon Musk lifts Twitter suspensions of journalists

Elon Musk has reinstated the Twitter accounts of a half dozen journalists who had been briefly suspended for showing how to track the location of the billionaire’s private jet.

The move to lift the bans early Saturday came after Musk faced a firestorm of criticism from prominent political figures, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff, for suspending the accounts.

The Twitter CEO said he allowed the users back on the platform based on the results of a 24-hour Twitter survey that he posted Thursday night where he asked if the accounts should be reinstated immediately or in seven days. More than 58% of voters urged him to unsuspend the journalists “now.”

“The people have spoken,” Musk tweeted at 12:18 a.m. Saturday. “Accounts who doxxed my location will have their suspension lifted now.”

New York Times reporter Ryan Mac, CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan, The Washington Post’s Drew Harwell and other journalist’s accounts were reinstated after Musk made the announcement.

“I want to thank everyone for all the support and kind words over the past day and some change,” said independent journalist Aaron Rupar, one of those who had been suspended.

“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 said.

But political pundit Keith Olbermann’s account was still suspended early Saturday morning. It wasn’t immediately clear why.

Olbermann’s final Twitter post encouraged users to recreate Harwell’s tweet that resulted in his suspension, which shared information pertaining to the location of Musk’s private jet.

The journalists were suspended for about 28 hours after allegedly sharing Musk’s location, a violation of a new policy the Twitter CEO implemented Wednesday after he claimed a stalker followed and jumped on top of a car carrying his infant son.

Musk implied that the man was able to find his child from scouring users such as @ElonJet, a since-suspended account that tracks the real-time use of his private jet.

The new rule states that any users “doxxing real-time location info” will be suspended. Users can post the locations of others on a “slightly delayed basis,” he said.

Musk claimed the journalists he suspended posted his “exact real-time location, basically assassination coordinates.”

He joined a Twitter Spaces conference to answer questions from the suspended journalists, many of whom claimed they never shared the tech mogul’s locations.

Musk did not offer much explanation other than “You dox, you get suspended, end of story.”

“There is not special treatment for journalists,” he also said.

In a Twitter reply, Musk agreed with a user that the “only reason” journalists want to dox him is to encourage others to harass him and his family.

“Indeed, there is no other reason,” Musk said.