Musk’s X and Trump campaign downplayed hacked dossier: report

Elon Musk’s social media platform worked with former President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign to remove links to hacked documents, according to the New York Times reported Friday.

Citing two people with knowledge of the events, the Times said the Trump campaign worked with

The dossier was published by journalist Ken Klippenstein, who attached a copy of the document Substack article discuss their content. Then X exposed Klippenstein’s account and blocked links to the material.

The Trump campaign created the 271-page document as part of its vetting of Vance as a potential vice president, but hackers leaked it to the press. Until Klippenstein’s article, major media outlets such as the Times and Washington Post had refused to publish or report on the Vanity Fair material reported.

“Ken Klippenstein has been temporarily suspended for violating our rules regarding the release of unredacted private personal information, specifically Senator Vance’s physical addresses and most of his Social Security number,” X said in one opinion last month. In his own opinionMusk called Klippenstein’s report “one of the most egregious and vicious acts of doxxing we have ever seen.”

But X’s quick answer was struck quickly deemed “hypocritical” by experts, several of whom had raised concerns that the decision was based on hacked materials following Musk’s own condemnation of Twitter, which later reversed its decision.

Musk criticized Twitter’s decision. survey whether employees who suppressed the story should be punished with prison and call it “Violation of freedom of expression. After purchasing Twitter in 2022, Musk gave a number of hand-picked journalists access to internal documents to write stories that were later published and promoted Twitter files. Some of those files also contained personal information of public officials, The Washington Post reported.

Musk’s relationship with Trump has grown over the past year, a shift of their previous feuds. The Tesla CEO has supported Trumpopenly discussed a possible role at a Trump White House and recently appeared alongside the former president at a rally.

He also launched America PAC, a super political action committee spend a significant amount of change to help Trump on the national stage and Republicans in close congressional elections. Exactly how much money Musk personally donated to the group is unknown, although he initially discussed a budget between $140 million and $180 million, the Times reports. America PAC will report its third quarter report later this month.