Even by the standards of his brief, tumultuous stretch as owner of Twitter, one he has often seemed to inject with fresh chaos by the hour, Elon Musk’s been busy lately.
Last week, he suspended @elonjet—an account run by 20-year-old Jack Sweeney that tracks publicly available information about the location of Musk’s private jet. After previously promising to not suspend this account, Musk claimed Sweeney had “doxxed” his real-time location, putting his and his family’s lives in danger.
As evidence, Musk tweeted an 11-second video of balaclava-clad man behind the wheel of a car, then showed the car’s California license plate. Musk claims the man followed a car carrying his infant son, then “blocked car from moving & climbed onto hood.” [sic] The video was apparently taken by one of Musk’s security staff. Musk wasn’t in the car, and although he claims his child was, thus far, there’s been no publicly available video evidence to confirm that.
But, Musk added, without providing evidence of harm or legal action, “Legal action is being taken against Sweeney & organizations who supported harm to my family.”
On Thursday, Musk summarily suspended the accounts of several journalists who had reported on the @elonjet suspension, claiming they had also “doxxed” him by sharing his real time location. (He offered no evidence that they had done so.) After putting out one of his vox populi surveys asking whether the suspended journalists should be immediately reinstated, the survey results said, “Yes, they should.” And so he reinstated them.
But on Friday, he suspended the Twitter account of Business Insider correspondent Linette Lopez, a former colleague of mine who for years has reported thoroughly and critically on Musk and Tesla. Though Lopez hadn’t shared the @elonjet account, her suspension appears to be permanent, and to date, no reason has been given.
On Saturday, he suspended Washington Post tech journalist (and former Daily Beast reporter) Taylor Lorenz. The next morning, he told Eric Weinstein (the Intellectual Dark Web gadfly and employee of Musk’s fellow billionaire Paypal pal, Peter Thiel) that Lorenz was temporarily suspended for “past doxxing.” Lorenz’s account was restored within a day, without further explanation.
A couple hours later, Musk tweeted a video from his seat at the World Cup final match in Qatar.
Busy guy, that Elon.
Too busy, it seems, to indicate whether or not he (or someone on his behalf) has filed a police report over an alleged life-threatening stalker who Musk claims was following “assassination coordinates” provided by Sweeney via @elonjet.
The LAPD, in a statement on Thursday, said the department’s Threat Management Unit “is aware of the situation and Tweet by Elon Musk and is in contact with his representatives and security team,” but also noted, “No crime reports have been filed yet.” The LAPD’s Media Relations department on Monday reiterated to The Daily Beast that no report has been filed with them. South Pasadena P.D. told The Daily Beast that a crime report has been filed, but did not say by whom. Musk did not immediately respond to queries asking if he or someone who represented him had filed a crime report. We will update if we receive any further responses.
The Washington Post reported Sunday night that a man named Brandon Collado, who believed he was receiving coded messages from Musk’s ex-partner, the musical artist known as Grimes, had identified himself as the person in the video.
For his part, Collado also said he believed Musk was stalking him.
This development alone shows Musk’s security team might very well have had a good reason to consider Collado dangerous. Stalking is a genuine threat to well-known figures and their families, even more so when they’re controversial—as Musk is.
There’s reportedly security camera footage from the gas station where the incident between Collado and Musk’s security team took place, which means (presumably) we’ll have at least a little more definitive info of what actually went down, at some point. And according to Collado’s account in The Post, “officers with the South Pasadena police arrived at the gas station, questioned Collado and told him they’d file a report.”
But in the meantime, Musk is being infuriatingly opaque about an incident that he’s used to justify taking unprecedented actions in suspending multiple journalists’ accounts.
“Musk has seemingly rewritten rules on the fly to justify suspending less-sympathetic journalists for publishing—and in the case of Linette Lopez, hasn’t offered a justification at all. ”
He has deflected questions asking for specifics into a broader, considerably muddled conversation about what constitutes “doxxing,” what should be considered “public information,” and whether Musk meant anything he’s previously said about wanting to bring “transparency” and “free speech” to Twitter.
Musk has authorized several sympathetic journalists to publish (on Twitter) a series of “TWITTER FILES”—which show the previous Twitter regime selectively enforcing penalties for Terms of Service violations and, at times, just making up rules as they went along. The goal, Musk contends, is to provide transparency and the unvarnished truth about the actions of people who were powerful enough to shape the discourse and threaten “civilization.”
But Musk has seemingly rewritten rules on the fly to justify suspending less-sympathetic journalists—and in the case of Lopez, hasn’t offered a justification at all. Further confusing the issue among Musk’s wave of suspensions is whether a Twitter account sharing publicly available information (and yes, even with Musk’s plane having a Privacy ICAO Aircraft Address—also known as a PIA—it is still public info) about the location of his private jet constitutes “doxxing.” Specifically, the question remains whether such info enabled anyone to track Musk (or his family) leaving the airport, and then follow the car transporting them—as Musk has alleged.
The Post notes that the L.A. incident Musk has complained about took place at “a gas station 26 miles from Los Angeles International Airport and 23 hours after the @ElonJet account had last located the jet’s whereabouts,” adding, “Police have said little about the incident but say they’ve yet to find a link between the confrontation and the jet-tracking account.”
It’s entirely possible that Musk genuinely believes Collado posed a mortal threat, and that @elonjet was a tool in his arsenal. He may also be sincere in his belief that the account doxxed him, and that reporters giving any oxygen to the account are guilty of the same offense. And there might be a very good reason for his heretofore silence on whether he’s taken the first, most basic legal step—filing a report with the police—to hold Collado accountable for what he alleges is a very serious crime.
But, given the chaos and confusion surrounding this incident and its subsequent fallout, Musk should take this as an opportunity to hold himself to the same standards he’s demanded of others.
He should be forthcoming about his legal actions addressing the alleged stalking incident. He should be transparent about the policies he’s creating (and just as quickly disposing of) that infringe upon the free expression of people he perceives as his opponents. In doing so, Musk could demonstrate that he demands of himself the same standards he’s excoriated others for failing to uphold.
Put your reputation where your mouth is, Elon. Tell us whether you’ve put your allegations in writing, in a police report. And tell us what the rules of your “Free Twitter” are, because at this point—it doesn’t seem as if even you know.
