Elon Musk has branded Jacqui Lambie an ‘enemy’ of the Australian people for deleting her X account following her scathing tirade against the social media boss.
The war of words erupted when Lambie urged other politicians to boycott X, formerly Twitter, after Musk refused to remove footage of the Wakeley church stabbing from the platform.
Musk criticised the independent senator from Tasmania in posts overnight, writing: ‘Absolutely. She (Jacqui Lambie) is an enemy of the Australian people.’
In a separate post Musk added Lambie ‘has utter contempt for the Australian people’.
Lambie deleted her X account on Tuesday after using the online platform to unleash a scathing attack on the billionaire boss.
Elon Musk (pictured) has slammed independent Senator Jacqui Lambie after she deleted her X account and urged other politicians to do the same
The billionaire X boss labelled Senator Lambie as an ‘enemy’ to the Australian people (pictured)
The senator called Musk an ‘absolute friggin’ disgrace’, claiming he should be jailed for his refusal to remove content about the alleged stabbing at the Christ The Good Shepherd Church in western Sydney.
‘I think (Elon Musk) is a social media knob with no social conscience. Someone like that should be in jail,’ Senator Lambie told Sky News on Tuesday.
‘I don’t give a stuff about the platform.
‘When you want to lead by example, it has to happen from here, so start switching off X.’
The X account for Senator Lambie’s party, the Jacqui Lambie Network, remains active on the platform despite the last post being published in 2022.
It comes as Musk intensified his feud with Australian regulators in the form of the eSafety Commissioner this week.
X was ordered by the Federal Court late on Monday to block all users from viewing footage related to an alleged terror attack by a 16-year-old boy on Assyrian bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel during a live-streamed service in a Wakeley church on April 15.
Musk mocked Prime Minister Anthony Albanese after the court agreed to a two-day interim legal injunction.
He suggested the platform was the last refuge of free speech against the Australian government.
‘We have already censored the content in question for Australia, pending legal appeal, and it is stored only on servers in the USA,’ Musk posted to X.
Independent Senator Jacqui Lambie (pictured) deleted her X account and urged other politicians to do the same after Musk refused to remove content of the alleged stabbing of a bishop in a Wakeley church
X has temporarily complied with the order in Australia while it fights it in court – but argued a global takedown order violates the principle of free speech – a point which has been hammered home by Musk.
A failure to comply with a court’s ruling to remove posts could see X fined almost $800,000 a day and executives be held in contempt of court.
On Tuesday, Musk shared a post stating Mr Albanese had given X free advertising after the prime minister said it was the only social media platform that hadn’t bowed to demands by Australia’s eSafety commissioner.
‘I’d like to take a moment to thank the PM for informing the public that this platform is the only truthful one,’ Mr Musk said.
‘Our concern is that if ANY country is allowed to censor content for ALL countries, which is what the Australian “eSafety Commissar” is demanding, then what is to stop any country from controlling the entire Internet.
‘We have already censored the content in question for Australia, pending legal appeal, and it is stored only on servers in the USA.
‘Should the eSafety Commissar (an unelected official) in Australia have authority over all countries on Earth?’
Mr Albanese branded Mr Musk as ‘arrogant’ for defying the demands of eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant – a former Twitter employee – which he said were only enforcing ‘common decency’.
‘He [Mr Musk] is someone who is totally out of touch with the values that Australian families have,’ Mr Albanese said.
‘He’s putting his ego and putting his dollars towards taking a court case for the right to put more violent content on that will cause distress to people who are on his platform.
‘Other social media operators have accepted the decision of the eSafety Commissioner.
‘Surely social media needs to have some element of social responsibility. This is essentially a common sense position by the eSafety commissioner.’
Mr Albanese said the eSafety Commissioner was ‘doing her job to protect the interests of Australians’ and criticised Musk for being ‘out of touch’.
‘The idea that someone would go to court for the right to put up violent content on a platform shows how out of touch Mr Musk is.’
‘Social media needs to have social responsibility with it. Mr Musk is not showing any.’
Asked whether the commissioner could be granted stronger powers or if access to X in Australia should be cut, the prime minister said the government was looking at what measures could be taken.
‘No one wants censorship here – what we want, though, is the application of a bit of common sense so you don’t show and propagate violence online,’ Mr Albanese said.
