Elon Musk Threatened to Give @NPR Handle to Another Company

Elon Musk seems to be escalating his conflict with media groups as he said he would take away the National Public Radio’s (NPR) Twitter handle because it had stopped tweeting. According to NPR, the Twitter CEO said the @npr handle, which has been inactive for weeks, may be transferred to another company or person in a string of emails sent to an NPR reporter.

NPR Could Lose Its Twitter Account To Another Company

NPR quit posting content to its 52 official Twitter feeds last month after Musk placed the label “state-affiliated media” on its account along with those for the BBC, PBS, and other publicly funded media organizations which implied government involvement in their editorial content.

This caused an outrage on the social media platform and NPR along with other media outlets including PBS and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation(CBC) chose to halt their use of the app.

However, Musk later removed the label on the companies’ handles while still retaining it for publications supported by governments like Russia’s RT and China’s Xinhua News Agency. Seemingly, it was too late to lure the companies back as the affected outlets have not resumed activity on the app.

Following the sudden and random policy changes at Twitter since Musk’s take over, NPR CEO John Lansing claimed he had lost faith in the platform’s decision-making and he would require more time in order to determine if Twitter can be trusted again.

NPR reported that Musk emailed one of its reporters, Bobby Allyn, on Tuesday saying, “So is NPR going to start posting on Twitter again, or should we reassign @NPR to another company?”

“Our policy is to recycle handles that are definitively dormant. The same policy applies to all accounts. No special treatment for NPR,” he added in another email.

In accordance with Twitter’s terms of service, failure to log in, rather than tweeting, constitutes inactivity for an account. Based on the regulations, an account must be logged in at least once every 30 days or it risks being permanently deleted for “prolonged inactivity”.

Emily Bell, a professor who studies social media at Columbia Journalism School, classified Musk’s move as an extraordinary threat saying, “If this is a sign of things to come on Twitter, we might soon see even more of a rapid retreat by media organizations and other brands that don’t think it’s worth the risk.”

When asked who would take over NPR’s Twitter account, Musk responded in his usual sarcastic online tone saying, “National Pumpkin Radio.” He additionally wrote in the message, “So what’s the beef?” pointing out that NPR is no longer identified as “government-funded,” which was the problem that initially caused the station to cease using Twitter.

Musk’s Troubled Twitter Reign

Since Musk took over Twitter in October, the company has undergone many changes, some of which have benefited the company mainly in the financial aspect and some that have adversely affected the social media platform.

One of the detrimental changes has been when Musk stripped the blue verified check mark off accounts and made them accessible on a subscription basis. While the move was meant to aid the company make a profit to offset the massive losses it had been suffering, it also led to many fake accounts impersonating influential people.

This caused the app to descend into chaos as users could not identify the real from the fake accounts which greatly affected established companies and celebrities. As a result, Musk reissued verified marks for some notable accounts and developed the gold check mark for organizations and corporations at a monthly subscription of $1,000.

Musk’s reign as Twitter CEO has seen the loss of many users and advertisers to other alternatives such as Bluesky due to the seemingly endless conflicts he has with companies and organizations.

From issues with Substack – the newsletter firm to media outlets, the social media platform is quickly becoming a place for chaos, which is driving users away.

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