NPR freaks after Elon Musk says he might give their handle to someone else

In April, NPR left Twitter after being offended by Elon Musk labeling its account “Government Funded Media” despite being subsidized by the U.S. government.

“NPR is stepping away from Twitter, and this includes this NPR Politics feed. Please read the thread to find other ways to find our work,” it wrote. 

“We are not putting our journalism on platforms that have demonstrated an interest in undermining our credibility and the public’s understanding of our editorial independence,” said NPR CEO John Lansing in a statement to staff.

Now, after its Twitter account has gone dark, NPR claims Elon Musk threatened to hand access to its account to another company.

“So is NPR going to start posting on Twitter again, or should we reassign @NPR to another company?” Musk said in an unprompted email, NPR claims. 

The Hill reports, “Twitter’s policy on inactive accounts states that users must log in to their account at least once every 30 days. The policy says that accounts could be permanently removed because of ‘prolonged inactivity.’” 

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

“National Pumpkin Radio,” Musk allegedly wrote in an email, adding a fire emoji and a laughing emoji. “NPR isn’t tagged as government-funded anymore, so what’s the beef?”