Washington Post Reporter Asks Musk for Comment, Gets Banned From Twitter

“I received zero communication from the company on why I was suspended or what terms I violated,” Taylor Lorenz wrote on Substack.

Elon Musk’s war on journalists marched on this weekend with Washington Post reporter Taylor Lorenz getting temporarily booted from Twitter after she asked the erratic billionaire for comment on a story.

“When I went to log in and see if he had responded to our query, I was suspended. I received zero communication from the company on why I was suspended or what terms I violated,” Lorenz wrote on her Substack.

Musk said on Sunday morning that Lorenz was suspended for “prior doxxing action by this account” and that it would be lifted “shortly.”

The suspension came after Musk axed and then reinstated the accounts of several other prominent journalists who had made reference to the account @elonjet, run by a college kid who tracks the movements of his private aircraft.

It also followed a recent complaint to Musk by influencer manager Ariadna Jacob, who was the subject of a critical article by Lorenz and who subsequently sued the reporter for defamation.

Jacob claimed that Lorenz doxxed her in the article, which appeared in The New York Times when she worked there. In Lorenz’s story, she linked to a public Zillow listing of an influencer collaboration home.

“Such shameful behavior will not be tolerated going forward,” Musk wrote in reply on Friday, a day before Lorenz was suspended from Twitter.

The suspension of Lorenz with not clear explanation of her alleged infraction has been a theme of previous journalists bans.

For instance, Twitter banned some reporters who merely linked to @elonjet’s new account on social media rival Mastodon—which was also briefly banned on Twitter.

“Twitter has served as an essential real time news source and played a crucial role in the journalism world,” Lorenz wrote, “but Musk’s arbitrary suspensions of journalists who report on him should worry anyone who values journalism and free expression.”

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