Twitter Feud: Elon Musk Threatens to Reassign NPR's Twitter Handle to 'Another Company'
Elon Musk has once again found himself at the center of attention on social media, this time for threatening to hand over NPR's Twitter handle to another company.
It all started when the popular news outlet announced that it would no longer be tweeting from its 52 official Twitter accounts. The move came after Twitter labeled NPR as "state-affiliated media." However, Elon Musk was not happy about NPR's decision to leave the social media platform and he decided to take matters into his own hands.
On Tuesday, Musk reportedly sent an email to NPR reporter Bobby Allyn, asking if the outlet would start tweeting again or if he should reassign the @NPR Twitter handle to another company. NPR reported that in another email, Musk explained that their policy is to recycle handles that are definitively dormant, and that the same policy applies to all accounts, including NPR's.
This threat from Elon Musk comes after a feud between him and NPR over the labeling of the outlet as "state-affiliated media." When Twitter first labeled NPR as such, the news organization was aligned with state-controlled media such as China's Xinhua News Agency. However, Twitter later changed the label to "government-funded media," but NPR argued that the label was still "inaccurate and misleading" since the organization is a private nonprofit with editorial independence.
The conflict between Musk and NPR intensified as the billionaire retorted to NPR's departure from the platform with a barrage of quips and jabs, culminating in a tweet urging for the defunding of NPR, according to Business Insider. This led to a flurry of reactions on social media, with many people expressing their support for NPR and criticizing Musk's behavior.
When Twitter first launched its paid verification system that allowed users to purchase blue ticks for $8, the platform was inundated with a slew of impersonation and parody accounts. The influx of fake accounts was so overwhelming that the company had to temporarily halt the rollout and instead grant gold ticks to some news organizations and verified business accounts.
Musk had initially planned to remove all "legacy" verification on Twitter, but his recent decision to return blue checkmarks to some users after previously removing them caused chaos on the platform. Despite Insider's attempt to confirm the details through an email sent out-of-hours, Twitter's press service remained mum on the matter, only sending an auto-reply that failed to address the question.
This is not the first time Elon Musk has made headlines for his controversial behavior on social media. In fact, he has a long history of garnering attention for his tweets, including a tweet that led to a defamation lawsuit from a Thai cave rescuer, and another tweet that resulted in a $20 million fine from the SEC.
