Audio Of Elon Musk's Twitter Spaces Session With Journalists Before He Abruptly Quit

Twitter boss Elon Musk abruptly left a session of journalists on Spaces after journalists, including one who he had banned on the microblogging platform, asked him what is going on. Twitter Spaces is an audio-enabled feature where people can discuss anything.

"...Elon Musk just popped into a Twitter Spaces chat with a bunch of journalists. He was called out by journalist Drew Harrell, who he banned, for lying about posting links to his private information, then leaves almost immediately after being pressed. Here is the exchange," Bradley Eversley, an engineer, tweeted along with the audio recording of the Spaces session which had some 36,000 listeners.

Holy Shit. Elon Musk just popped into a Twitter Spaces chat with a bunch of journalists. He was called out by journalist Drew Harrell, who he banned, for lying about posting links to his private information, then leaves almost immediately after being pressed. Here is the exchange pic.twitter.com/wVA9Gb5MVJ

— Bradley Eversley (@ForeverEversley) December 16, 2022

Twitter has suspended the accounts of more than a half-dozen journalists who had been writing about the company and Mr Musk.

Some of the journalists had been tweeting about Twitter shutting down an @ElonJet account that tracked flights of the billionaire's private jet and about versions of that account hosted at other social networks.

"...There is not going to be any distinction between journalists and regular people. Everyone will be treated the same. You're just on Twitter, just a citizen. So, no special treatment. You doxx [giving personal information in public for harassment], you get suspended," Mr Musk said on the Spaces session.

Mr Harrell, one of the journalists banned by Twitter, replied, "You're suggesting that we shared your address, which is not true. I never posted your address."

"You posted a link to the address," Mr Musk said.

"It was a link, in the course of reporting about @ElonJet, we posted links to @ElonJet, which are now not online, now banned on Twitter. Twitter also marks even the Instagram and Mastodon accounts of @ElonJet as harmful, using, we have to acknowledge, the same exact link blocking technique that you have criticised as part of the Hunter-Biden New York Post story...So what is different here and then?" the journalist said.

"That is no more acceptable to me as you, same thing...You doxx, you get suspended, end of story, that's it," Mr Musk said.

He left the session after this.

Doxxing refers to revealing identifying information such as home address or phone number online, typically to target someone for abuse.

The Twitter account suspensions included reporters from CNN, The New York Times, and The Washington Post as well as independent journalists.