Elon Musk Threatens to Give ‘@NPR’ to Another User Unless the News Organization Starts Tweeting Again

AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File

Twitter CEO Elon Musk told an NPR reporter that the social media platform may reassign the company’s handle to another user if the news organization does not resume tweeting.

NPR announced last month it would no longer tweet after Twitter put a label on its account reading, “U.S. state-affiliated media.” The outlet receives less than 1% of its funding from the federal government and operates independently of it.

Twitter has since dropped the “state-affiliated media” label on all accounts, including those associated with the Russian government and the Chinese Communist Party.

On Tuesday, NPR reporter Bobby Allyn said he received emails from Musk telling him that his employer’s Twitter handle could be reassigned if NPR doesn’t resume tweeting:

In an unprompted Tuesday email, Musk wrote: “So is NPR going to start posting on Twitter again, or should we reassign @NPR to another company?”

Under Twitter’s terms of service, an account’s inactivity is based on logging in, not tweeting. Those rules state that an account must be logged into at least every 30 days, and that “prolonged inactivity” can result in it being permanently removed.

Allyn reported that Musk refused to answer a question about whether Twitter intends to change the terms of service or what prompted his email.

“Our policy is to recycle handles that are definitively dormant,” Musk said in another email. “Same policy applies to all accounts. No special treatment for NPR.”

When Allyn asked Musk who would potentially take over the @NPR handle, the Twitter CEO responded, “National Pumpkin Radio” along with a fire emoji.