Elon Musk in clash with Twitter’s Indian American lawyer

Tesla CEO Elon Musk's criticism of a content decision made by the social networking platform legal team was followed by a wave of abusive tweets directed against the company's "top censorship advocate" Vijaya Gadde, who is upset after the takeover of the social media platform.

In response, Musk tweeted: “The extreme antibody reaction from those who fear free speech says it all.”

Musk has clinched a deal to buy the company for $44 billion. Twitter confirmed the sale of the company to the billionaire this week.

Musk went on to fault a decision the company made in 2020 to block a ‘New York Post’ story about Hunter Biden. He called the move "incredibly inappropriate".

Musk was responding to a tweet from Saagar Enjeti, host of a political podcast, who in turn was referencing a report by ‘Politico’ that Gadde broke down in tears at a meeting with her staff this week.

"Vijaya Gadde, the top censorship advocate at Twitter who famously gaslit the world on Joe Rogan's podcast and censored the Hunter Biden laptop story, is very upset about the @elonmusk takeover," Enjeti tweeted on April 26.

Musk replied: "Suspending the Twitter account of a major news organization for publishing a truthful story was obviously incredibly inappropriate."

The Post story referenced by Enjeti had alleged that Biden, son of then-presidential candidate Joe Biden, had improper connections to an executive at a Ukrainian energy firm.

Musk is known for throwing ideas, sometimes light-hearted, on his Twitter timeline. His tweets often spark debates on various issues, including free speech that polarises the twitteratis.

CNN reported that the deal caps off a whirlwind news cycle in which the Tesla and SpaceX CEO became one of Twitter's largest shareholders, was offered and turned down a seat on its board and bid to buy the company – all in less than a month.

"Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated," Musk had said in a statement.

"I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans. Twitter has tremendous potential - I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it," he added further.

(ANI)