Elon Musk beefs up criticism of Twitter executives, sparking online attacks
Vijaya Gadde, the leading censorship advocate on Twitter who celebrated the world on Joe Rogan’s podcast and censored Hunter Biden’s laptop story, is very upset with the @Elon Musk takeover,” Enjeti tweeted.
Musk, CEO of Tesla, which acquired Twitter for $44 billion this week, responded, criticizing Gadde’s past actions. “Suspending a major news organization’s Twitter account for publishing a true story was obviously incredibly inappropriate,” he wrote.
During the 2020 presidential election, Twitter temporarily blocked a New York Post article about Democratic candidate Joe Biden’s son Hunter, which it said violated a policy against posting hacked material. The company didn’t suspend the entire news organization, but did stop it from tweeting for a while.
Musk’s response on Tuesday was the first time he has targeted specific Twitter executives using his almost singular ability to draw attention to topics he cares about. Supporters of Musk, a prolific, freewheeling tweeter with 86 million followers, tend to hoard his views.
The tweet may violate the terms of its deal to acquire Twitter, which allows the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla to tweet about its acquisition “as long as those tweets don’t disparage the company or any of its representatives.” It wasn’t immediately clear what enforcement tools the company had.
Musk has used the platform to criticize Twitter’s decisions in the past, particularly on topics related to free speech and banning accounts of individuals who violate Twitter rules. Gadde is the senior executive most responsible for these decisions.
He also used his megaphone to take a look at Twitter’s popularity, pointing out that Donald Trump’s Truth Social “beat Twitter and TikTok” in Apple Store downloads early Wednesday.
But so far, Musk’s criticisms don’t appear to have been personal or targeted at individual Twitter employees. His responses to tweets from Enjeti and online influencer Mike Cernovich also reveal the chaos — and potential damage — that can ensue when a company’s new owner amps up criticism of workers.
Musk’s personal attacks are a recent nightmare scenario for Twitter employees, who over the weeks have repeatedly raised concerns in interviews, at a company-wide town hall and on forums. online insiders, that they could be targeted by the richest man in the world.
Twitter users quickly piled on criticism of Gadde, including calling on Musk to fire her and using racist language to describe her. Gadde was born in India and immigrated to the United States as a child. One user said she would “go down in history as a terrible person”.
Twitter employees publicly defended Gadde against the attacks on Wednesday morning. “@vijaya, first empathy hit,” tweeted Lea Kissner, the company’s privacy engineering manager.
Cernovich also tweeted about Twitter Deputy General Counsel Jim Baker, drawing a response from Musk.
Cernovich told The Washington Post he was “surprised by the reaction to my tweet, which was a discussion of a news story.”
Twitter, Musk and Gadde did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Baker declined to comment.
Enjeti responded to The Post’s request on Twitter, writing that Gadde was a “public figure” because she appeared on Joe Rogan’s popular podcast. “My criticism of her for a policy she has publicly defended is in no way responsible for what some rando accounts may tell her,” he tweeted.
In internal posts and at a company town hall on Monday, Twitter employees asked executives to make sure they would be able to do their jobs safely if Musk targeted them.
Musk launched a hostile takeover bid on Twitter two weeks ago, citing a desire to restore “free speech” to the platform. Over the weekend, he is engaged in closed-door negotiations with the board. On Monday, the two parties announced that they had reached an agreement for an acquisition that should be finalized in three to six months, according to the executives.
Employees who spoke to The Post on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation said they feared Musk would undo some of the steps they have taken to better moderate hate speech and misinformation.
Individual Twitter employees have faced online attacks for company policy decisions before, but in the past the company has come to their defense.
After Twitter applied a fact-check label to the former Trump’s tweets in May 2020, conservative media figures and President Donald Trump’s son targeted Twitter executive Yoel Roth, who at the time worked in the corporate security team. They surfaced anti-Trump tweets from three years prior and claimed he was responsible for the decision to label the former president’s misleading tweets, prompting a barrage of personal attacks.
Spokesperson Brandon Borrman, Twitter’s vice president of global communications, told The Washington Post at the time that it was “incredibly disappointing for people to attack an individual for a business decision.”
Faiz Siddiqui contributed to this report.
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