Elon Musk Replies To Far Right User, After Reinstatement Of X Account
Far right activist has his X (Twitter) account restored by Elon Musk, who last week fired former CNN anchor Don Lemon
Elon Musk continues to restore the X (formerly Twitter) accounts of people deemed to hold far right or extremist viewpoints.
The Guardian reported that Elon Musk, after reinstating the account of Martin Sellner, a far-right Austrian who is also founder of Identitarian Movement and has been linked to the Christchurch terrorist Brenton Tarrant, also replied to one of his tweets.
Elon Musk continues to worry observers with his flirtation with extremist content. Last year Musk seemed to endorse an anti-Semitic tweet touting the “great replacement” conspiracy theory, which contends Jewish people and the left are engineering an ethnic and cultural replacement of the white population with non-white immigrants.
Dom Lemon
That drew a strong rebuke from the White House, which condemned Elon Musk’s endorsement of what it called a “hideous” anti-Semitic conspiracy theory on X.
Last week Elon Musk cancelled the contract of former CNN anchor Don Lemon to host a talk show on X, after he was challenged by Lemon over the platform’s content moderation practices during an interview.
In the interview last week, during Musk admitted to Lemon that “you are upsetting me”, he defended keeping up several antisemitic and racist posts on the platform, stating they were not illegal.
“So, Don, you love censorship, is what you’re saying?” Musk said.
Lemon replied that he believed in moderation, to which Musk replied: “Moderation is a propaganda word for censorship.”
After the interview was taped, Musk texted Lemon saying “contract terminated.”
Lemon published the interview on YouTube, and said that “his commitment to a global town square where all questions can be asked and all ideas can be shared seems not to include questions of him from people like me, Lemon said in a post.
Account reinstatement
Now the Guardian has reported that Elon Musk has reinstated the X account of Martin Sellner, the founder of Identitarian Movement, who reportedly preaches superiority of European ethnic groups.
Martin Sellner was banned from Twitter in 2020 under the former management regime, along with dozens of other accounts linked to the movement.
Martin Sellner allegedly received donations from and communicated with the Christchurch terrorist Brenton Tarrant, who in 2019 entered two mosques in that New Zealand city and murdered 51 people, and injured 40 more.
According to the Guardian, Tarrant in 2018 prior to the Christchurch shootings had made a €1,500 donation to Sellner’s Identitarian organisation, and that the two had exchanged friendly emails in 2018, including Sellner inviting Tarrant to join him for a beer or coffee if he ever came to Austria.
Sellner was subjected to searches by Austrian authorities in 2019 on suspicion that he was co-operating Brenton Tarrant, and part of a terrorist organisation.
Sellner has denied involvement in the attack, the Guardian reported.
Sellner reportedly praised Musk for restoring his X account last week, where he now has a blue tick associated with paid accounts and has 51,000 followers.
“I’m happy and grateful to be back on Twitter/X. I would especially like to thank Musk for making this platform more open again,” he said, according to an English translation of his tweet. “Hope the trend continues and everyone else who has been banned comes back.”
After Sellner posted a video related to Swiss police shutting down an event he was speaking at in the Swiss canton of Aargau and stating he had been banned from Aargau for two months, Musk replied “Is this legal?”.
Last month it was reported Germany was considering banning Sellner from entry to the country.
