Elon Musk news: Twitter CEO says suspending accounts for Mastodon links was ‘a mistake’

Elon Musk has admitted taking down accounts for posting links to rival Mastodon was “a mistake” as he looks for a replacement after announcing he is stepping down.

While speaking in a Twitter space on Wednesday, Mr Musk was questioned about the suspension of accounts, like that of venture capitalist Paul Graham, for posting links to Mastodon.

“Yeah, that one was a mistake,” Mr Musk said when asked about users getting banned for mentioning Mastodon.

“‘I agree, it was a mistake,” the Tesla billionaire again said after being told that arguments can be made for suspending Kanye West and ElonJet.

He was then asked to clarify whether people can post the link to Mastodon now.

“Yeah f***ing post Mastodon all goddamn day long, I don’t care,” he added.

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ICYMI: Mr Musk on Monday night appeared to fuel a theory that bots were to blame for his defeat in the poll asking whether he should remain Twitter CEO.

Earlier on Monday, an account with the username Wall Street Silver quote-tweeted a side-by-side comparison of the poll on the question of reinstating the account of former President Donald Trump with the poll on the question of Mr Musk’s ongoing Twitter leadership.

The former poll had roughly 15m votes and 836,000 likes, while the later poll had nearly 15m votes and just 312,000 likes. This led Wall Street Silver to wonder “Did bots brigade the Elon poll yesterday?”

Mr Musk replied, “Interesting”. It is not clear why there would be any relationship between voting in a poll on Twitter and liking a tweet, two different actions that do not seem to have any direct relationship.

ICYMI: Member of congress Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez condemned billionaire Elon Musk after the new Twitter chief suspended the accounts of half a dozen journalists who routinely reported on him and the social media platform.

Responding to the billionaire’s abrupt ban on journalists, Ms Ocasio-Cortez pointed out that he should take a “beat and lay off the proto-fascism”.

She pointed out that Mr Musk was an extremely controversial and powerful public figure. “I get feeling unsafe, but descending into abuse of power + erratically banning journalists only increases the intensity around you,” the Democratic lawmaker said.

As someone who has been subject to real and dangerous plots, I do get it. I didn’t have security and have experienced many scary incidents,” she added.

“In fact, many of the right-wing outlets you now elevate published photos of my home, car, etc. At a certain point you gotta disconnect. Maybe try putting down your phone,” she suggested.

Mr Musk swiftly responded: “You first lol.”

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Mastodon has seen millions of users flock in since Twitter's takeover by Elon Musk in October, growing eight times in monthly users.

According to a blog post by the platform’s founder, Eugen Rochko, the website saw 2.5 million users between the months of October and November, a big jump from 300,000 users earlier.

In the post addressing Twitter's now rolled-back rules limiting posting links to other social media sites and suspension of journalists, Mr Rochko wrote "more and more journalists, political figures, writers, actors and organisations" were moving over.

"Understanding that freedom of the press is absolutely essential for a functional democracy, we are excited to see Mastodon grow and become a household name in newsrooms across the world, and we are committed to continuing to improve our software to face up to new challenges that come with rapid growth and increasing demand," he wrote.

Mastodon is a free, open-source and self=hosted platform which has soared in popularity off late. However, its user base still remains a fraction of Twitter's over 238 million users.

ICYMI: Elon Musk is reportedly “actively searching” for a new CEO of Twitter, according to sources cited by CNBC.

There’s no word on who might be a potential successor, despite several figures putting their name forward - including the rapper Snoop Dogg and computer scientist Lex Fridman.

“The question is not finding a CEO, the question is finding a CEO who can keep Twitter alive,” Musk tweeted on Sunday night.

ICYMI: Tesla investors are reportedly fuming over what they see as a major distraction for Musk. The electric car maker is currently experiencing the biggest stock sell-off since going public 12 years ago (see chart below), and the CEO’s antics on Twitter are seen as a significant factor in this $600 billion slide.

We’ve heard from Antoine Argouges the founder of ethical investment group Tulipshare:

ICYMI: The billionaire asked the lawmaker from California if he had approved “hidden state censorship in direct violation of the Constitution of the United States.”

Mr Schiff was quick to turn the tables on Twitter’s owner.

“I don’t support censorship. Or hate speech. As the (outgoing) CEO of Twitter, how about you? Why not do more to stop slurs against Black people, LGBTQ+ people, Jewish people, and others? Do you commit to providing the public with actual answers and data, not just tweets?” he wrote.