Musk's tweet leads to wave of abuse against Twitter lawyer Vijaya Gadde

Elon Musk’s criticism of a content decision made by Twitter’s legal team was followed by a wave of abusive tweets directed against the firm’s top lawyer, Vijaya Gadde.

Musk, who has 86.4 million followers on Twitter and has clinched a deal to buy the company for $44 billion, often uses the site as a way to criticise Twitter’s decisions, particularly when they involve banning accounts from people who violate the platform’s rules, some of whom Musk sees as being unfairly sidelined.

On Tuesday, he faulted a decision the company made in 2020 to block a New York Post story about Hunter Biden. He called the move “incredibly inappropriate.” While he didn’t identify Gadde by name, the post was in response to an article in which she was mentioned prominently. 

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.