WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) – Elon Musk temporarily suspended the Twitter account of another journalist, the latest in a series of suspensions after owner Elon Musk complained that personal information endangering his family was being divulged.
“Elon Musk suspended my Twitter account,” Taylor Lorenz, a Washington Post reporter, said on her Substack page.
Lorenz, who covers technology, said the suspension by Musk came after she and a colleague “attempted to reach him several times” for comment on a story.
“When I went to log in and see if he had responded to our query, I was suspended. I received zero communication from the company on why I was suspended or what terms I violated,” she wrote.
Post executive editor Sally Buzbee protested the move, saying: “The arbitrary suspension of another Post journalist further undermines Elon Musk’s claim that he intends to run Twitter as a platform dedicated to free speech.”
She said the suspension “occurred with no warning, process or explanation.”
Musk, the billionaire who owns Tesla and SpaceX along with Twitter, subsequently tweeted that Lorenz’s was a “temp(orary) suspension due to prior doxxing action by this account. Will be lifted shortly.”
Doxxing refers to posting private information online to embarrass or harass someone.
The latest controversy began Wednesday when Musk suspended @elonjet, an account that tracked flights of his private plane.
Musk said the move was necessary after a car in Los Angeles carrying one of his children was followed by “a crazy stalker”; he seemed to blame the jet tracking for the incident.
Some of the suspended journalists had reported on the affair, including tweets linking to the suspended @elonjet account, which Musk said amounted to offering “assassination coordinates” against him and his family.
In a chat hosted live on Twitter, Musk provided no evidence for his claim.
Some of the suspended accounts were reactivated on Saturday, though some journalists said they had been told they would have to delete certain posts before returning.
Musk was strongly criticized by the European Union and the United Nations after suspending the accounts of journalists from CNN, the New York Times and the Washington Post.
© Agence France-Presse