Replying to tweets from right-wing users, Elon Musk boosts criticism of Twitter executives Vijaya Gadde and Jim Baker, leading to more users joining the attacks
Yesterday, with as little fanfare as possible, I downloaded my archive and deactivated my Twitter account. Dirt : White hot — Dirt is a daily email about entertainment. … not.not.reading Karissa Bell / Engadget : Elon Musk is already at risk of violating a key provision of his deal with Twitter Robby Soave / Reason : If Elon Musk Is ‘Targeting’ Twitter Employees, Isn't The Washington Post ‘Targeting’ Elon Musk? The Economic Times : Former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo slams Elon Musk for making legal head Vijaya Gadde a ‘target of threats’ Ananya Bhattacharya / Quartz : An Indian-born female Twitter executive received a barrage of abuse following a Musk tweet Wall Street Journal : Elon Musk Criticizes Twitter Executive, Drawing Employee Backlash Tweets: Elon Musk / @elonmusk : https://twitter.com/... @dickc : Bullying is not leadership. Dave Lee / @daveleeft : Moments after @elonmusk publicly criticised the work of Twitter policy exec @vijaya, her mentions are full of hateful tweets. Is this how he plans to run the company? @dickc : @elonmusk what's going on? You're making an executive at the company you just bought the target of harassment and threats. Will Oremus / @willoremus : Elon Musk has now publicly agreed with and amplified criticisms from the right of two individual Twitter employees today— one accusing its top policy exec of “censorship” and the other accusing a company lawyer of facilitating fraud. https://twitter.com/... Raffi Melkonian / @rmfifthcircuit : Oh man this is amazing. No random public announcements (that's normal) except Elon Musk is allowed to tweet about the deal (lol) but not if he insults Twitter. I'll get back to the previous topic in a second, but this was too delightful to ignore. /9 https://twitter.com/... @ev : Just to say, there are many defensible _nuanced_ perspectives on content moderation and, also, @vijaya is one of the most thoughtful, principled people I know. Jacob Silverman / @silvermanjacob : What's to stop Musk from tasking an engineer on day 1 with searching through the Twitter DMs (which aren't encrypted or ephemeral) of politicians, journalists, and critics? Kai Ryssdal / @kairyssdal : Pretty sure this puts Musk in breach of the agreement h/t @RMFifthCircuit https://t.co/jB6YNOzVXc https://t.co/LXUL6dLh4t Elizabeth Dwoskin / @lizzadwoskin : NEW: Two days into Musk buying Twitter, he's using his megaphone to help target Twitter employees, prompting a barrage of attacks (including racist ones) from his fans. Twitter workers have repeatedly asked management for protection from this scenario. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... @cernovich : Censorship is not leadership. https://twitter.com/... Ian Sherr / @iansherr : Twitter's old CEO is publicly sticking up for his staff more than both of his predecessors combined https://twitter.com/... @can : yes and @jack is enabling this https://twitter.com/... @palmerreport : Elon Musk has publicly attacked two high ranking Twitter employees today, putting him in violation of the disparagement clause in his buyout agreement. It's unclear if he's just unraveling in general, or if he's purposely trying to get the buyout deal voided. Shona Ghosh / @shonaghosh : Dick Costolo, ex-Twitter CEO, speaking out publicly. Unlike @jack. https://twitter.com/... Federico Viticci / @viticci : Both professionally and personally, Twitter has meant a lot to me over the past 13 years. But if this is how this guy plans to run the service - and all signs are pointing to it - it's going to be the end of the road for me. Sigh. https://www.bloomberg.com/... Alex Stamos / @alexstamos : Elon is simply displaying bad leadership. Once he completes the transaction, he has the right to replace key executives (consistent with their employment agreements) but in the meantime it is flatly unprofessional to target individuals for public harassment. Alex Stamos / @alexstamos : But creating memes targeting individual executives like @vijaya, who has a long history of trying to balance safety with free expression and fighting for the privacy of users, is completely unacceptable. Executives at Elon's other companies need to tell him he's out of line. Alex Stamos / @alexstamos : The scarce input for tech companies is not capital or ideas, but talent with execution capability. Elon's behavior towards people who are about to work for him is at the point where Tesla shareholders should get nervous about the ability to attract and retain talent. Elon Musk / @elonmusk : @dickc What are talking about? I'm just saying Twitter needs to be politically neutral. Brandon / @bborrman : The personal attacks do what exactly? Make you laugh? You already won. All that matters is money, you've made that clear. You can fire anyone you want in a few months. The only way you could be wealthier is if pettiness could be converted to currency. Gergely Orosz / @gergelyorosz : This is Twitter's one-liner description on their about page (emphasis mine). Every Twitter tech employee who is a minority that I've talked with is pessimistic if the culture of diversity & inclusivity will stay. Musk singling out two female execs on day one did not help. https://twitter.com/... Benny Johnson / @bennyjohnson : Posting memes is not “bullying”, deplatforming people and arbitrarily silencing opposing viewpoints is. https://twitter.com/... Molly Jong-Fast / @mollyjongfast : @dickc @elonmusk I don't understand why musk is doing this. @esaagar : Why is Elon not allowed to substantively disagree with an executive at the company that he just bought? https://twitter.com/... Molly Jong-Fast / @mollyjongfast : This is from the former CEO of Twitter to the soon to be owner of Twitter. https://twitter.com/... @esaagar : To head off the inevitable screeching: @elonmusk is making a substantive point that the *head of Twitter's policy team* repeatedly defends censorship and obfuscates any evidence to the contrary He is in no way responsible for anything a random account says to her https://twitter.com/... Michael Edison Hayden / @michaelehayden : Imagine being the richest man in the world and needing validation from the sad sacks who watch Tim Pool https://twitter.com/... Marc Andreessen / @pmarca : My friend Dick is of course correct, bullying is not leadership. However, rolling over for mobs of bullies is also not leadership, and we're long past time that stop too. https://t.co/8eKa6G1ggH Kara Swisher / @karaswisher : What's going on: He's trying to goad people into leaving and it's an odious way of doing it. Speaking of which, you can be sure to keep up with the payments he needs to make, there will have to be significant layoffs at twitter. He'd rather they quit, than pay them out. https://t.co/QiRCt2MVmc Mollie / @mzhemingway : Lefty NYT propagandist asserts powerful Twitter exec responsible for some of company's most egregious and credibility-destroying attacks on freedom of expression and of the press should be thanked and supported in face of criticism. https://twitter.com/... @slpng_giants : Former @twitter CEO: https://twitter.com/... @dempmcgee : Thankless task that she was compensated 17 million dollars for last year. https://twitter.com/... Taylor Lorenz / @taylorlorenz : We live in the stupidest timeline possible https://twitter.com/... Stacey / @scotsfyre : LOL! So your saying a woman needs a man to stick up for her? Sorry the censorship you advocate for so hard is kinda going up in smoke, but you know the story about heat & a kitchen, right? https://twitter.com/... Dave Lee / @daveleeft : @elonmusk @vijaya I'd imagine every Twitter employee is looking at this and thinking what if they're next. Just a sample: https://twitter.com/... Catalin Cimpanu / @campuscodi : In case you were wondering how the Musk-Twitter saga is going... https://twitter.com/... @jameeljaffer : Ironic that the first person whose speech is censored under the Twitter/Musk deal is...@elonmusk. Is it possible that even Musk recognizes that there are sometimes good reasons to suppress speech that the First Amendment would protect? https://twitter.com/... Matthew Yglesias / @mattyglesias : @SilvermanJacob @BrendanNyhan Was anything stopping the previous set of executives? @esaagar : 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 https://twitter.com/... Sarah Personette / @sep : I stand with and for our female leadership. Making hard, principled decisions every day and showing up with empathy and care in every moment. This is #trueleadership @leslieberland @vijaya https://twitter.com/... Kelly Sims / @kellylsims : You may not agree with every decision Twitter makes - I certainly don't - but let's get one thing straight. @vijaya is the real deal, an incredible mind and an even better human being. The way she's being treated today is disgusting. https://twitter.com/... @esaagar : 2/ The Twitter executive I mentioned *literally* went on the Joe Rogan Experience and is therefore the definition of a public figure. My criticism of her for a policy she publicly has defended is in no way responsible for what some rando account may say to her https://twitter.com/... @cernovich : Twitter lawyer Jim Baker, when general counsel of the FBI, personally arranged a meeting between the FBI and Michael Sussmann. In this meeting, Sussmann presented fabricated evidence in the Alfa bank matter. @elonmusk, this is who is inside Twitter. He facilitated fraud. https://twitter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
The episode follows an earlier round of Musk-amplified criticism aimed at Gadde, showing that public targeting of Twitter policy staff had already become a recurring issue before the buyout closed. It matters because employees were asking management for protection while observers raised the prospect that Musk's posts conflicted with provisions of the acquisition agreement.
Later coverage places the incident within a broader management pattern: Twitter engineers who publicly criticized Musk were fired after criticizing him on the platform, while staff also resisted requests for privileged account access.
First-order effects
- Vijaya Gadde faces an increased volume of abusive and racist attacks after Musk echoes criticism of her; Jim Baker is also drawn into the public backlash.
- Twitter employees' requests for protection become more urgent as Musk's posts turn internal policy leaders into targets for his audience.
Second-order effects
- Observers' concern over a possible disparagement violation shifts scrutiny of the buyout from Twitter's moderation decisions to Musk's conduct toward the company and its staff.
- Public criticism becomes riskier for Twitter personnel when the company’s most prominent incoming owner both directs audience attention at executives and later dismisses employees who criticize him publicly.
Third-order effects
- The related coverage points to a governance model in which control of the platform and its public narrative are increasingly intertwined, narrowing the space for employees to challenge leadership openly.
- If that pattern persists, platform-policy enforcement and workplace safety become harder to separate: the same account-level influence that shapes public debate can be used to pressure staff and outside critics.
The trend: Twitter's ownership transition is becoming a test of how a platform leader’s personal audience can reshape employee security, internal dissent, and policy governance.