Free speech warrior Elon Musk reportedly threatens to sue Twitter staff if they leak to media

World’s wealthiest person suggests staff could face ‘full extent of the law’ for leaking to press after he gave access to internal messages and emails to select media

Elon Musk has reportedly threatened Twitter staff who leak confidential information about the company to the press after he approvingly released internal messages from employees to select pundits.

The new owner of the social media company – who has repeatedly endorsed free speech absolutism and asserted “transparency is the key to trust” and that “sunlight is the best disinfectant” – has ordered staff to sign a document acknowledging the warning, according to reporting from Platformer managing editor Zoe Schiffer.

“As evidenced by the many detailed leaks of confidential Twitter information, a few people at our company continue to act in a manner contrary to the company’s interests and in violation of their [nondisclosure agreement],” the message reads, according to the report.

“This will be said only once: if you clearly and deliberately violate the NDA that you signed when you joined, you accept liability to the full extent of the law [and] Twitter will immediately seek damages,” it continues.

The world’s wealthiest person reportedly added that “breaking your word by sending detailed info to the media … will receive the response it deserves.”

Hailed by conservatives as evidence of a conspiracy against them, “The Twitter Files” contain selective emails and internal messages about how the company has approached content moderation and accounts that violate the company’s terms of service.

The posts lack crucial context while alleging that the company conspired to censor right-wing accounts for political gain. Instead, they have revealed what the company has publicly stated about its moderation policies for several years, while exemplifying the same phenomenon they claim to denounce: weaponising social media platforms for partisan ends.

Their release to a selected group of writers, who trickled out selected findings in a series of Twitter threads over the last week, also appear to reflect Mr Musk’s own stated policy goals of “freedom of speech, not freedom of reach.”

On 30 November, the company said in a statement that “none of our policies have changed,” but that its policy enforcement relies on “de-amplification of violative content: freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach”.

Mr Musk also is facing a new lawsuit of his own, after two women who lost their jobs at Twitter claim that the company disproportionately targeted women employees after he laid off hundreds of workers.

The lawsuit filed in US District Court in San Francisco said that Twitter laid off 57 per cent of its female workforce, compared to 47 per cent of male employees.

It also alleges that the disparity is more severe in engineering roles, where 63 per cent of women lost their jobs compared to 48 per cent of men.

The lawsuit accuses the company of violating federal and state laws against sex-based discrimination in the workplace.