Elon Musk yesterday threatened to reassign NPR's Twitter account to "another company" if the media organization doesn't start tweeting again. In "an unprompted Tuesday email" to NPR reporter Bobby Allyn, Musk wrote, "So is NPR going to start posting on Twitter again, or should we reassign @NPR to another company?" according to an NPR news article by Allyn.

Allyn pointed out that reassigning NPR's account solely for not tweeting would contradict Twitter's inactive account policy, which says that inactivity "is based on logging in," not on posting tweets. While accounts "may be permanently removed due to prolonged inactivity," Twitter's policy says that users can keep their accounts active simply by logging in at least once every 30 days.

"Musk did not answer when asked whether he planned to change the platform's definition of inactivity and he declined to say what prompted his new questions about NPR's lack of participation on Twitter," Allyn wrote.

NPR stopped tweeting about three weeks ago after objecting to labels applied to its Twitter account. Musk, Twitter's owner and CEO since October 2022, had labeled the news organization's account as "state-affiliated media," a designation typically applied to propaganda outlets controlled by governments in countries without substantial free press protections. The move contradicted Twitter's own policy that said, "State-financed media organizations with editorial independence, like the BBC in the UK or NPR in the US for example, are not defined as state-affiliated media for the purposes of this policy."

Musk admitted the first label "might not be accurate" and changed it to "government-funded media," but NPR gets less than 1 percent of its annual funding directly from the US government. NPR announced its decision to stop tweeting a few days after that change, saying that Twitter "is taking actions that undermine our credibility by falsely implying that we are not editorially independent."

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Musk: “What’s the beef?”

Musk also labeled the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Twitter profile as "69% Government-funded Media," which isn't accurate. The CBC announced it would pause activity on Twitter because the label "undermines the accuracy and professionalism of the work" performed by CBC journalists.

Musk subsequently dropped the labels from all media outlets, even removing the longstanding "state-affiliated" labels from state-controlled news organizations in China and Russia. With about two weeks having passed since the labels were removed, Musk expressed annoyance that NPR hasn't posted any new tweets.

"Our policy is to recycle handles that are definitively dormant," Musk wrote to Allyn yesterday. "Same policy applies to all accounts. No special treatment for NPR." Allyn reported that Musk "responded sarcastically" when asked who would take over NPR's Twitter account:

"National Pumpkin Radio," Musk wrote, adding a fire emoji and a laughing emoji to describe the content of the fictional gourd-themed broadcaster. "NPR isn't tagged as government-funded anymore, so what's the beef?"

We contacted NPR today and will update this article if we get a response. Allyn's article said that an NPR spokesperson declined to comment.

Staying on Twitter may not be “worth the risk”

Before the government-funded designation was removed, NPR CEO John Lansing said he wasn't sure whether NPR would return to Twitter even if Musk deleted the label. "At this point I have lost my faith in the decision-making at Twitter," he said. "I would need some time to understand whether Twitter can be trusted again."

Allyn's article noted that giving "established accounts to third parties poses a serious risk of impersonation and could imperil a company's reputation."

"If this is a sign of things to come on Twitter, we might soon see even more of a rapid retreat by media organizations and other brands that don't think it's worth the risk," Columbia Journalism School Professor Emily Bell told NPR. "It's really an extraordinary threat to make."

Allyn also wrote that "one former Twitter executive was taken aback by the remark, telling NPR that such a threat should be alarming to any business operating on the site, since it indicates that acquiescing to Musk's every whim may be necessary in order to avoid being impersonated."

According to an update by Allyn, Musk sent one more email after the NPR article published. The message to Allyn had no text in the body and just two words in the subject line: "You suck."