Fact Check

No, Musk Didn't Tweet That the Dems Paid Jack Dorsey to Block Anti-Biden Info

The grammar and typos alone might have given this tweet away as fake.

Published Dec. 6, 2022

Claim:
Twitter owner Elon Musk tweeted that Democrats paid former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey "millions of dollars" to block negative information about the Bidens in 2020.

In early December 2022, social media users shared an image mocked up to look like a tweet posted by Twitter owner Elon Musk. The fake tweet states: "The Democrats paid the CEO Jack Dorsey of Twitter millions of dollars to block and delete people's pages during the 2020 election That posted anything about Hunter Biden's laptop

Let me say again the democratic party paid millions to block stories about the Bidens"

But we found no evidence Musk tweeted this statement about Dorsey. It appeared to be a riff on tweets Musk posted that criticized Twitter's decision (before he became its owner) to block a New York Post story detailing files found on what appears to have been an abandoned laptop belonging to U.S. President Joe Biden's son, Hunter.

Musk tweeted on Dec. 2, 2022, his belief that revelations found in internal correspondence between Twitter employees about the company's decision would be "awesome."

Musk became the owner of Twitter in late 2022 after dropping $44 billion to purchase the social platform. The billionaire had been vocally critical of Twitter's policies, like a decision to ban former U.S. President Donald Trump from the platform in the wake of the deadly U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, sparked by his false claims of mass-scale election fraud.

Twitter explained its controversial decision to block the Post article in the days leading up to the 2020 election by stating the story contained personal and private information that violated Twitter's policy against posting hacked material. Twitter reversed that decision in April 2021.

Sources

Conger, Kate, and Lauren Hirsch. "Elon Musk Completes $44 Billion Deal to Own Twitter." The New York Times, 28 Oct. 2022. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/27/technology/elon-musk-twitter-deal-complete.html.

Conger, Kate, and Mike Isaac. "In Reversal, Twitter Is No Longer Blocking New York Post Article." The New York Times, 16 Oct. 2020. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/16/technology/twitter-new-york-post.html.

"Elon Musk's 'Twitter Files' Ignite Divisions, but Haven't Changed Minds." Washington Post. www.washingtonpost.com, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/12/03/elon-musk-twitter-files/. Accessed 6 Dec. 2022.

Palma, Bethania. "Latest in the Hunter Biden Laptop Saga: CBS News Taps Expert Who Says It's Real." Snopes, 22 Nov. 2022, https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/11/22/latest-in-the-hunter-biden-laptop-saga-cbs-news-taps-expert-who-says-its-real/.

"Twitter Bans Trump, Citing Risk of Violent Incitement." AP NEWS, 20 Apr. 2021, https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-donald-trump-media-michael-flynn-social-media-f41b11060d7703e3a3136ddb5eefa055.

"Email Reveals How Hunter Biden Introduced Ukrainian Biz Man to Dad." New York Post, 14 Oct. 2020, https://nypost.com/2020/10/14/email-reveals-how-hunter-biden-introduced-ukrainian-biz-man-to-dad/.

Bethania Palma is a journalist from the Los Angeles area who has been working in the news industry since 2006.

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