Musk Reinstates Kathy Griffin And Jordan Peterson Amid New Policy

Topline

Elon Musk reinstated controversial Twitter users Kathy Griffin, Jordan Peterson and the Babylon Bee as he explained a new content policy reversing Twitter’s prior stance of removing harmful content as questions swirl over who will actually staff the company.

Friday was a whirlwind at Twitter.

Key Facts

The “new Twitter policy is freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach,” Musk tweeted Friday afternoon, adding Twitter will demonetize and not promote tweets containing hate speech or otherwise “negative” content.

Musk also announced the reinstatement of previously banned users “Kathie Griffin, Jorden Peterson & Babylon Bee,” apparently referring to the liberal comedian Griffin, the far-right commentator and psychologist Peterson and the correctly spelled conservative satire publication.

But Musk wrote the highly anticipated “Trump decision has not yet been made,” though the new Twitter boss has previously backed the return of the former president to the platform and promised to rid the platform of its supposed liberal bias.

The flurry of news about Twitter’s new policies comes amid a mass exodus of employees from the firm after Musk gave staff two days to decide whether they wanted to quit or remain at a new, “hardcore” Twitter earlier this week.

And in another surprise move, the billionaire Twitter CEO emailed all of the company’s remote engineers to fly to San Francisco before midnight Friday to meet with him face-to-face and discuss their coding, according to several outlets.

Musk ominously warned about “Freedom Fridays” in another Friday afternoon tweet, tagging the post with a spoiler alert, a potential reference to even more staff reductions (there are fewer than 3,000 Twitter employees left after numbering about 7,500 two weeks prior, according to the Verge).

Key Background

Musk took charge at Twitter 15 days ago after closing on his $44 billion purchase, immediately sacking CEO Parag Agrawal and most other top executives. Musk has seemingly operated on a whim, frequently lobbying users for their input and rolling out and then walking back new features. Musk had promised his new site wouldn’t become a “free-for-all hellscape” in an open letter to advertisers earlier this month, but a host of companies have already pulled ads from the site.

Tangent

Musk is also the CEO of electric vehicle maker Tesla and private aerospace giant SpaceX, though he said Wednesday he didn’t “want to be CEO of any company” during a testimony challenging his $55 billion Tesla compensation package.

Big Number

3%. That’s how much Tesla stock fell Friday, with its shares down 19% over the last month, compared to a 0.1% increase Friday and 6.2% monthly gain for the S&P 500. Tesla’s stock has been “tarnished” by Musk’s “Twitter antics,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives wrote in a note to clients last week.

Forbes Valuation

We estimate that Musk is worth $188.2 billion, $13.5 billion more than anybody else on earth (or mars). Musk’s net worth is down more than $130 billion since last November largely due to the performance of Tesla shares.

Musk Reinstates Kathy Griffin And Jordan Peterson Amid New Policy — But Not Trump Yet