Elon Musk demands that Steve Huffman from Reddit remove criticism of DOGE employees

Entrepreneur and billionaire Elon Musk has asked Reddit CEO Steve Huffman to remove posts he didn't like.

This is reported by UNN with reference to Mashable.

It is worth noting that Musk himself has repeatedly stressed that he is not a supporter of content moderation. When Musk acquired Twitter in 2022, one of the driving forces behind his decision to buy the social network was its content moderation policy, in particular, the banning of right-wing accounts that Musk sympathized with.

Now Musk appears to be trying to gain control over content moderation on social media platforms that he doesn't even own.

According to a new report in The Verge, Musk privately contacted Reddit CEO Steve Huffman about content on the social platform.

Shortly after the correspondence between Musk and Huffman, the DOGE employee section was removed. The subreddit where the topic was started, r/WhitePeopleTwitter, was also blocked for 72 hours.

Mask's DOGE reviewing Signal chat incident with US military plans26.03.25, 11:39 • 25030 views

 Details

Before Musk contacted the Reddit CEO, the owner of X went on a public tirade against Reddit. In particular, among his claims, Musk stated that some Reddit users had "broken the law" by posting unflattering comments about DOGE employees.

The comments on Reddit that Musk was referring to appear to be from a Reddit thread that the company removed after Musk reached out. While Reddit has previously stated that it is taking action against "violent content," it was not known until now that Musk had personally filed a complaint with the company's CEO.

Musk also called it "crazy" that some subeditors had banned the ability to post links to X.

It is unclear whether Musk mentioned this complaint in his correspondence with Huffman. At the time of publication, no action had been taken against subeditors who ban links to X.

While some comments in the thread may be perceived as threatening and removed regardless, it is concerning that Musk may be making private requests to executives at third-party companies regarding content decisions.

We take any report of a violation of Reddit's policy seriously, whether directly on Reddit or through other public or private means. We will evaluate the content we are notified of and take action if it violates our standards.

Addition

White House spokeswoman Caroline Levitt said Musk is investigating how a journalist from The Atlantic was added to a Signal chat that included some of Washington's highest officials.

Musk's help will be "a guarantee that this will never happen again," Levitt added.