Twitter owner Elon Musk met with leaders of the House of Representatives on Thursday.
Key Details
- Following months of criticism, Twitter owner Elon Musk appeared before House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) on Thursday, January 26.
- He was asked to assure Congress that the website’s direction would remain non-partisan, despite Musk’s endorsements of several Republican candidates and banning critical journalism accounts.
- “Just met with Speaker McCarthy and Representative Jeffries to discuss ensuring that this platform is fair to both parties,” Musk tweeted. McCarthy told reporters that Musk “came for my birthday.” He turned 58 on Thursday.
- CNN reports that Musk also met with White House officials to discuss electric vehicles, with senior advisor John Podesta to discuss climate policy, and met with bipartisan infrastructure law specialist Mitch Landrieu to discuss advancing electric-vehicle production.
Why It’s Important
Musk purchased Twitter in late October with the vision of turning it into a more free-speech-oriented social media platform. He has since faced criticism for chaotically operating the website and received several lawsuits from disgruntled employees and landlords. The European Union is also threatening to ban the platform if it doesn’t submit to an extensive policy audit.
With Tesla’s stock valuation plummeting and SpaceX facing delays in getting its Starship heavy-lifting vehicle off the ground, his acquisition of Twitter and subsequent loss of $200 billion in net worth has left observers and investors anxious about his leadership and heralding of several of the most innovative companies in the world.
As we reported last month, Twitter banned several prominent journalists who were critical of his ownership of the social media website with a seven-day suspension. This included journalists from CNN, The Washington Post, and The New York Times. Their accounts were reinstated shortly, but the incident undermined Musk’s claims of making the platform free speech oriented.
The Problem
Musk has become more vocally aggressive against prominent Democrats, spreading conservative narratives, reinstating former President Donald Trump’s account, criticizing the efficacy of COVID vaccines, accusing the Biden administration of weaponizing federal agencies against Twitter, and clashing with prominent congressional leaders like Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Forbes notes.
In October, Musk tweeted a link to a story in the Santa Monica Observer that claimed the husband of the former House speaker Paul Pelosi was drunk and arguing with a male escort at the time of the attack on him that took place in Pelosi’s apartment. “There is a tiny possibility there might be more to this story than meets the eye,” Musk said in a tweet, which was deleted shortly after it was posted.
On Saturday, after receiving a question on Twitter about whether or not he should apologize to the Pelosis, Musk said: “I apologize.”
