Elon Musks X boots reporter from site after she debunks bizarre conspiracy theory claiming mogul uses burner account

An investigative reporter who debunked a bizarre conspiracy theory about X owner Elon Musk was kicked off the social media platform — sparking outcry over censorship by the self-avowed free speech absolutist.Jacqueline Sweet, a contributor for the conservative magazine The Spectator World, did a deep dive into long-percolating rumors that Musk was using a burner account under the name Adrian Dittmann to lavish praise on himself.Sweet tracked down the real Dittman, a German entrepreneur living in the South Pacific nation of Fiji, to disprove the theory.After Sweet’s article outing Dittmann was published Saturday, Musk responded with his own cryptic post on X hours later.“I am Adrian Dittmann.

It’s time the world knew,” Musk wrote.But the seemingly innocuous story took another strange twist Monday when The Spectator World’s managing editor Matt McDonald announced Sweet’s X account was suspended for 30 days and the links to her article had been slapped with a warning label, claiming “violent or misleading content.”He also shared screenshots that showed users attempting to access her article were met with warnings about unsafe content.Musk and X did not immediately return requests for comment.Sweet’s last post on X came at 1:37 p.m.on Saturday, when she responded to a user about her article.“People are so committed to believing the Elon is Adrian thing,” she wrote.Musk’s cryptic response came about 10 hours later.Sweet’s apparent ban sparked a firestorm with critics of Musk and X accusing the platform of suppressing content to protect Musk’s image.“This is a direct assault on press freedom,” one X user wrote. Others pointed to the irony of Musk’s previous condemnation of the site formerly known as Twitter when it suppressed The Post’s Hunter Biden laptop scandal during the 2020 election.Musk supporters cheered Sweet’s suspension, arguing that the reporter crossed an ethical line by publishing private details about Dittmann.Swee...