'groundup' Dumps Elon Musk's X, Blames His 'ideologies'

News publication GroundUp has announced that it is leaving the X social media platform formerly Twitter, which is owned by South African-born US billionaire Elon Musk .

According to its website, the publications work is informed by the South African Constitution, which gives people the rights to housing, education, health, safety, justice, food and dignity. Our articles show what these rights mean in daily life.

The ideologies of Elon Musk, owner of X formerly Twitter, are inconsistent with the values of the Constitution, GroundUp said in its announcement via Bluesky on Thursday.

Musk has used this platform to express support for extremists like Tommy Robinson in the UK and the AFD Alternative for Germany in Germany.

It also accused Musk of being instrumental in putting HIV and TB programmes in Africa at risk, endangering lives.

X has also increasingly become a platform that promotes misinformation and hateful speech, it added.

We no longer wish to participate on a platform Musk owns. We are not going to close our account, but will no longer post or monitor our presence on the platform. Should X change considerably, we will reconsider this position.

GroundUp s announcement comes in the same week President Cyril Ramaphosa deemed it necessary to call Musk to discuss issues of misinformation and distortions about South Africa, according to the Presidency said .

In the process, the President reiterated South Africas constitutionally embedded values of the respect for the rule of law, justice, fairness and equality.

This was after the SpaceX owner questioned Ramaphosa on X, Why do you have openly racist ownership laws? He was seemingly referring to pro-transformation laws such as Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment B-BBEE.