Elon Musk has fallen out with journalist Bari Weiss days after he gave her access to his Twitter files

Journalist Bari Weiss spent Friday sparring with Twitter owner Elon Musk, days after he handed her a tranche of documents on Twitter policy that she released dubbed “The Twitter Files,” resulting in a culminating in angry Musk accusing Weiss of “signaling virtue”. ‘.

Weiss on Thursday criticized Musk’s decision to ban several journalists from Twitter, accusing them of “doxxing” him.

The world’s richest man questioned journalists from CNN, the Washington Post, the New York Times and other outlets covering his decision to suspend an account that tracked his private jet as he flew around the world. Musk said it was a dangerous invasion of his privacy.

The journalists blocked by Musk pointed out that they never revealed his address or personal information and said Musk was being hypocritical by banning coverage of him while promising transparency.

Weiss sided with the journalists on Friday morning and urged Musk to reverse his decision.

“The old regime at Twitter is ruled by its own whims and prejudices, and it sure looks like the new regime has the same problem. I am against both cases,” she tweeted.

“And I think those journalists who covered a story of public importance should be reinstated.

“I’ve never been swayed by the ‘Twitter is a private company’ argument. And I wonder, as I wrote @TheFP yesterday, if an unelected person or clique should have that kind of power over the public conversation.

However, she added that journalists, who praised Twitter’s decision to block previous users like Donald Trump, Kanye West and Alex Jones, are now complaining about censorship.

Needless to say, how mesmerizing it is to watch those journalists who defended – even celebrated – Twitter’s bans under the guise of ‘safety’ under the old regime! — who are now calling it censorship and saying it violates freedom of expression,’ she continued.

“It was the same then as it is now.”

Musk — who chose Weiss to cover the internal workings of the company he bought — wasted no time in responding, responding in less than half an hour.

Elon Musk, 51, has vowed that “anything we find will be made public” as Twitter continues to post the files surrounding the censorship on the social media platform, which he now owns. On Friday, he got into a furious argument with Bari Weiss, to whom he handed the documents

“What should be the consequence of doxxing someone’s exact location in real time? Suppose your child is in this place, as is mine,” he tweeted.

An hour later, with no response, he tweeted at 1:36 p.m.: “Bari, that’s a real question, not a rhetorical one. What is your opinion?’

Weiss challenged her powerful supporter on Friday, prompting him to accuse her of “signalling virtue to show that in the eyes of the media elite you are ‘good’ to keep a foot in both worlds”.

Still getting no response from Weiss, he continued at 3:34 p.m., “Rather than rigorously pursuing the truth, you are a sign of virtue to show that you are ‘good’ in the eyes of the media elite, to keep a foot in both worlds.”

Weiss took his time to respond, Musk responded four hours later at 7:22 p.m., trying to reassure her powerful supporter.

“If someone messed with my baby or my family, I’m sure I would change the rules and shut down the Jet account, too,” she said diplomatically.

“But last month you said you were giving it up to show your commitment to freedom of expression. So there’s no point in people being confused?

“Given the mixed news, I would have given more notice of the new rule before penalizing anyone for breaking it. And if they violate it again? Totally fair game to take action against these accounts. But I think people resent the lack of clear processes and communication.’

Weiss admitted it was complicated.

“I don’t envy any of those decisions,” she concluded.

“But the problem with Old Twitter was that the rules were vague, applied unevenly and often padded to suit mgmt’s political biases. The new Twitter has the opportunity to be different: open, transparent and above the partisan fray.”