A CNN correspondent whose Twitter account was suspended this week is rejecting Elon Musk’s explanation for the move, suggesting instead that he was targeted for his reporting on the CEO and his company.
During an appearance on “CNN This Morning” on Friday, Donie O’Sullivan said that the claim that he and other journalists reported Musk’s exact location in real time, thereby violating the platform’s recently updated rules, does not hold up.
“It’s completely untrue,” said O’Sullivan, who has written about the chaos at the company since Musk took over in October.
Asked what he thought was the real reason for the suspension, he said: “I hit the billionaire.”
O’Sullivan was among several reporters whose accounts were restricted Thursday, including Ryan Mac of The New York Times, Drew Harwell of The Washington Post, Matt Binder of Mashable and freelance reporter Aaron Rupar.
The CNN correspondent said he spent the day reporting on Twitter’s decision to restrict the @ElonJet account, which tracks Musk’s private jet using publicly available information. He said he found out his account had been suspended later that evening through a colleague.
O’Sullivan acknowledged that Twitter is a private company and is therefore authorized to take such action. But he argued that this week’s suspensions directly contradict Musk’s stated goal of upholding the free speech platform.
“Speaking of the guy who is a free speech absolutist who says he wants this to be a beacon of free speech, it’s quite something to see him ban journalists who happen to cover him critically, but I would say also in the right way. ” , Or… Sullivan said.
one statementCNN called O’Sullivan’s suspension “troubling” and pledged to further review his relationship with Twitter.
Twitter also suspended the account of Mastodon, a social media platform seen by some users as an alternative to Musk’s site following its acquisition.
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