Did Twitter Delete Video of Elon Musk Getting Booed? What We Know

A video of tech billionaire Elon Musk went viral over the weekend after a Twitter user shared a clip of the crowd at a Dave Chappelle comedy show booing Musk. However, the original tweet is no longer available on the social media site.

A link to the Sunday video posted by CleoPat48937885's account now reads, "This Tweet is from an account that no longer exists"—a notice that Twitter cites as auto-generating for tweets that belong to a deactivated account, which is different than a tweet from a suspended account.

If an account is suspended for violating Twitter rules, the notice would say "This Tweet is from a suspended account."

Although the original tweet is no longer available, the video of Musk on stage is available elsewhere on Twitter, and has also been shared on other social media platforms like YouTube.

The clip shows Chappelle welcoming Musk on stage at a show in San Fransisco as a loud chorus of boos came from the audience.

"It sounds like some of the people you fired are in the audience," the comedian joked as people continued to jeer at Musk.

After recently acquiring Twitter for $44 billion, Musk vowed to overhaul the company and champion free speech on the platform. However, he was accused of firing employees who criticized him both publicly and privately.

Although the account of the original Sunday video was deleted by the user, some Twitter users suggested that Musk was behind the clip's removal.

"The account that had the video of Elon Musk getting booed off stage at the Chappelle show has been deleted. Hahaha did @elonmusk delete it? Hahahaha," one user wrote.

"Lol, the whole account got nuked. That sound must burrow into his brain," another wrote of Musk.

Others users responding to the unavailable video tweeted, "Lmaooooo whole account is wiped for daring to post video," "The account is down, rip" and "Man, every account that I have seen that linked anything to do with this has been taken down. Wow. Sure do love all this new found freedom of speech on Twitter!"

In response to the crowd's response, Musk tweeted that the booing was only a fraction of the audience.

"Technically, it was 90% cheers & 10% boos (except during quiet periods), but, still, that's a lot of boos, which is a first for me in real life (frequent on Twitter)," the Tesla CEO wrote. "It's almost as if I've offended SF's unhinged leftists ... but nahhh."

Ahead of the comedy show, Musk drew fresh criticisms for tweeting, "My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci," targeting Anthony Fauci, the nation's outgoing chief medical advisor who led the response to COVID-19. The tweet, which mocked the use of pronouns used to refer to a persons gender, was criticized by some as being transphobic.

Chappelle has also been scrutinized for making controversial, transphobic jokes in his Netflix stand-up special "The Closer," which was the subject of much debate in October 2021.

Newsweek reached out to Twitter for comment.