Elon Musk reinstates the accounts of several journalists he banned for claiming they 'doxxed' him

Elon Musk takes away and Elon Musk gives.

Late Friday evening, the mercurial mega-billionaire unilaterally announced that he was canceling the ban on several journalists whose accounts had been suspended the previous day - who Musk said had "doxxed" him by posting links to an account that tracks his private jet.

"People have spoken," he tweeted just after midnight ET. "Accounts that doxxed my location will have their suspension lifted now." Musk was referring to a poll he released on when to reinstate accounts he had blocked. After almost 3.7 million votes, 59% of the votes were in favor of lifting the bans "now" while the rest voted for "in 7 days". Musk had also decided to reinstate Donald Trump's account last month based on a bogus poll.

Friday night accounts that had been restored included those of freelance journalist Aaron Rupar (@atrupar), New York Times' Ryan Mac (@RMac18), Washington Post's Drew Harwell (@drewharwell), CNN's Donie O'Sullivan (@donie), Mashable's Matt Binder (@MattBinder).

Musk's decision to suspend the accounts of several high profile journalists - who claims to be a "free absolutist speech" - came after he banned the @ElonJet account on Wednesday, citing the need to ensure the personal safety of his family. Also on Wednesday, issued a brand new rule prohibiting accounts from sharing the real-time location of individuals. Several of the suspended accounts had tweeted about the jet-tracker and were linked to his new account on rival social network Mastodon.

Rupar, after reactivating his account, tweeted: "I want to thank everyone for all the support and kind words over the last day and a few changes I was quite bummed about getting suspended initially but quickly figured out it would be okay because I'm lucky to have a amazing online community. Seriously, I really appreciate it. Cheers." Previously, Rupar told CNN that he didn't post anything on Twitter about @ElonJet.

The Intercept's Keith Olbermann, Micah Lee and Tony Webster's Twitter accounts were still suspended at the time to press.< /p>

More to come

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