Elon Musk Under Fire for Retaliatory 'Doxing' of Journalist

Elon Musk is under fire for allegedly supporting the "doxing" of a journalist on Twitter who criticized him.

Doxing refers to the release of personal information about a person, such a home address, that could be used for targeted harassment. Musk was accused of supporting the practice Monday after weighing in on a Glenn Greenwald Twitter thread criticizing The Atlantic writer Molly Jong-Fast for calling the billionaire's complaints about "woke" censorship an example of "old, rich white men" being upset with "young people" during an MSNBC interview.

After Greenwald shared an article about Jong-Fast purchasing a $5 million condo in New York City's wealthy Upper East Side neighborhood, Musk shared a SpongeBob SquarePants "Mrs. Krabs" meme. While the neighborhood has over 200,000 residents and the article shared by Greenwald did not include an explicit address as of Monday evening—although some Twitter users suggested the address was removed after Greenwald shared the article—the soon-to-be Twitter owner was slammed for the alleged doxing of Jong-Fast.

"@elonmusk joined @ggreenwald to attack @MollyJongFast with super witty 1984 jokes AND her home address (in response to her statements regarding rich white men bullies who feel threatened by progress): this version of 'free speech' (bullying, hatred, doxing) stifles speech," economist David Rothschild tweeted.

Rothschild added that Musk could "encourage" and "promote attacks (bully, hate, doxing) of progressives" on Twitter as its new owner but warned that "very quickly far-right, anti-woke going to find themselves alone in their wasteland."

"If your goal is to harass every left-of-center person off of a platform to create a place where only right-wing anti-woke thought it is acceptable & safe: you are not a free speech warrior," tweeted Rothschild.

"Incoming owner of Twitter has a chuckle about a tweet Greenw*ld posted to harass @MollyJongFast by listing her address for his deranged followers to see," journalist Aaron Rupar tweeted. "Gross stuff."

"For all arguing that nothing would change if Elon bought twitter, he + his little fanboy have shown exactly what will happen by doxxing @MollyJongFast," tweeted journalist Sarah Reese Jones. "Anyone who criticizes EM will get doxxed + he'll laugh about it. This is 'free speech' on 8Chan Twitter."

"Glenn Greenwald endangering a columnist and her family because she doesn't hold the same political views is next level creepy, and over the line," Twitter user @Justin_Higgins2 wrote in a tweet that was shared by Jong-Fast. "He's the furthest thing from a real journalist. Musk endorsing it isn't a good look either, to say the least."

Jong-Fast did not comment on the alleged doxing directly but tweeted "Merry merry" while sharing a screen capture indicating that she had disabled her Twitter notifications.

Newsweek reached out to Musk and Twitter for comment.