Since this week’s news that Elon Musk bought Twitter, Fox News star Tucker Carlson and prominent MAGA media personality Charlie Kirk have both tried to suggest the richest man in the world was responsible for unlocking their accounts on the platform after they were suspended over anti-trans tweets.
The reality of the situation, however, is that both Carlson and Kirk quietly deleted their offending tweets in order to regain access to their accounts—essentially going back on their declarations that they would never “apologize” or remove their posts misgendering and deadnaming a Biden administration official who is transgender.
On Monday night, after Twitter agreed to Musk’s bid to purchase the social-media giant for roughly $44 billion, Carlson’s account tweeted: “We’re back.” An hour later, the Fox News host led off his primetime show by gloating over Musk’s big purchase, framing it as one of the most consequential events in American history—an outlandish claim echoed by other prominent conservatives. While blustering on about how Musk will provide “real options for expressing yourself” on Twitter, Carlson’s show blared in an on-air graphic: “UNSHACKLED BY ELON MUSK: FREE SPEECH RESTORED; @TUCKERCARLSON BACK ON TWITTER.”
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Although the Fox host never directly mentioned his Twitter account’s status during the monologue, the implication was clear: Musk had “restored” his previously locked account—even though the Tesla founder won’t actually take over the tech giant for months.
Carlson’s account, which has more than five million followers, was temporarily suspended last month after he shared screenshots of tweets by Kirk and The Babylon Bee, a right-wing satire site, which called Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine a man. “But wait. Both these tweets are true,” Carlson wrote in his caption of the March 22 tweet.
Just like The Babylon Bee and Kirk’s, Carlson’s account was locked until he deleted the tweet for violating the platform’s hateful conduct rules, at which point he would be subjected to a 12-hour time-out before being able to resume posting. Shortly after he acknowledged the suspension in March, a Fox News spokesperson noted to a conservative outlet that Carlson would not remove the offending post.
“We can confirm to the Washington Times that Tucker is not planning to delete anything,” the Fox flack claimed.
A Twitter spokesperson told The Daily Beast on Thursday that “we took enforcement action on the account… for violating the Twitter Rules on hateful conduct, which prohibits the “targeted misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals.” Additionally, the spox noted, the “account owner was required to delete the violative Tweet and spend 12 hours in read-only mode before regaining full access to their account.”
A Fox News spokesperson did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
On Thursday morning, after more than a month away from the site, Kirk made his triumphant return as well, tweeting: “Due to New Management, I'm back on Twitter.” Much like Carlson, the Turning Point USA founder suggested Musk was responsible for his reactivation.
Also, just like the primetime Fox star, Kirk previously claimed he would not surrender to Twitter, vowing not to remove his violating tweet out of principle.
Shortly after Twitter sparked right-wing outrage by locking The Babylon Bee’s account for tweeting that Levine was the site’s “Man of the Year,” Kirk posted that Levine had spent “54 years as a man,” purposely misgendering her and using her former male name (otherwise known as deadnaming).
In response to his account’s temporary suspension, Kirk told Newsweek that he “will NEVER apologize for speaking the truth” and that Twitter's term of service “that demands users ignore, forget, or disregard what's objectively true is un-American and wrong.”
Following Carlson’s Twitter time-out, Kirk then took to his own website on March 26 to boast that the Fox host joined him in “refusing to delete tweet about Rachel Levine.” Kirk added to Fox’s statement that Carlson “is not planning to delete anything” by asserting to right-wing site The Post Millennial that Twitter wants “submission” from users like him.But according to a Twitter spokesperson, it appears that Kirk did, indeed, submit to the platform in order to regain his ability to post.
“This is not due to a change in our policies, this means the account went through the process to regain access — meaning they deleted the violative Tweet,” the social-media giant’s spokesperson emailed The Daily Beast (emphasis theirs).
Kirk did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A Twitter insider also told The Daily Beast that in the vast majority of cases where an account is locked for violating the site’s policies, the platform does not internally delete content—instead requiring the users to personally do that in order to regain their access.
While the platform will hide the tweet and replace it with a message noting it violated Twitter’s rules, the site won’t immediately delete it as it would need to be able to restore the post if the author successfully appeals it. Furthermore, after the account holder finally deletes the tweet, the placeholder message will remain on the user’s timeline for another two weeks.
As of publication, it appears that The Babylon Bee hasn’t followed in the footsteps of Kirk and Carlson, as the account hasn’t tweeted since March 20. The site’s CEO Seth Dillon also vowed last month to never delete the account’s Levine tweet.
“We’re told our account will be restored in 12 hours, but the countdown won’t begin until we delete the tweet that violates the Twitter Rules,” he tweeted from his personal account at the time. “We're not deleting anything. Truth is not hate speech. If the cost of telling the truth is the loss of our Twitter account, then so be it.”
