Elon Musk escalates feud with Australia over X as spy chief warns of extremism

Musk accused Australia’s leaders of trying to censor the internet after a court ordered his platform to stop showing footage of a bishop being stabbed

It came as the country’s spy chief warned that the internet was already ‘the world’s most potent incubator of extremism’ – and it’s only getting worse

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Elon Musk at an event in January. Targeting individuals is a regular strategy of the X CEO, as he goes after governments that try to exert more oversight of content on social media. Photo: AFP

Published: 12:38pm, 24 Apr 2024Updated: 1:25pm, 24 Apr 2024

Elon Musk has called for a senator in Australia to be jailed and suggested the country’s gun laws were meant to stop resistance against its “fascist government”, escalating his battle over a court order to remove video posts of a bishop being stabbed.

After Australia’s federal court told Musk’s platform X to temporarily stop showing video of a knife attack on an Assyrian bishop during a church service in Sydney a week earlier, Musk accused the country’s leaders of trying to censor the internet, prompting an outpouring of condemnation from lawmakers.

A screengrab of Elon Musk’s reply to a post on his social media platform X calling for Australian senator Jacqui Lambie to “be in jail for censoring free speech on X”. Photo: X/elonmusk

One senator, Jacqui Lambie, deleted her X account on Tuesday to protest against publication of the footage and called for other politicians to do the same, saying Musk had “no social conscience or conscience whatsoever”. She added Musk should be jailed.

When an unnamed X user posted overnight that it was Lambie who “should be in jail for censoring free speech on X”, Musk replied to his 181 million followers, “Absolutely. She is an enemy of the people of Australia”.

A representative for Lambie, an independent senator for the small island state of Tasmania, declined to comment.

Targeting individuals is a regular strategy of Musk, the world’s third-wealthiest person, as he goes after governments that try to exert more oversight of content on social media.