• Laura Loomer, an Elon Musk supporter and critic, says Musk demoted her account on Twitter/X.

• Musk has accused Loomer of “trolling for attention.”

• It’s a reminder: We’ve seen Musk run Twitter on a whim. Now that he has an important role in politics, will he behave the same there?

Laura Loomer has been banned from many social media sites including Twitter. After Elon Musk purchased the service in 2022, he discontinued them, along with many others who had been booted from Twitter by previous management.

Now, Loomer claims, Musk’s service downgraded her by stripping her of her account’s “premium” Blue Check status and other benefits. She says Musk made the move because she criticized his stance on immigration.

You may not be familiar with Loomer – described by Wikipedia as an “American far-right politician.” activistConspiracy theorist and internet personality” – and/or the online rock fight over immigration and racism that is breaking out between different wings of Trump supporters. If so, that could mean you have a healthy relationship with the internet. Good for you.

If you want to know more about the latter, my colleague Hasan Chowdhury has an explanation. You may also consult Twitter/X’s own summary of history at your own risk.

My point is that I don’t have to tell you this.

I just want to remind you that if Loomer’s claim is true, this would be par for the course for Musk and his social media company. (Musk did not deny Loomer’s allegations and told his followers to ignore her because she was “trolling for attention.” I have reached out to her and Twitter/X for additional comment.)

As I mentioned earlier, the most consistent thing about Musk’s leadership style at Twitter is his erratic, wavering inconsistency.

Sometimes it’s about relatively small things, like wooing Don Lemon to start a talk show on Twitter and then canceling the deal before the show even started. Sometimes it’s about really big things — like agreeing to pay about $44 billion for Twitter and then spending weeks in court not to buy it.

In any case, at this point you can only be surprised by things like this if you’ve never paid attention.

But I think it’s still worth mentioning. Because while Musk’s leadership style at Twitter hasn’t changed, his responsibilities have.

He is no longer just the richest person in the world, who, in addition to Twitter, also runs important companies such as Tesla and SpaceX. Given his importance to Donald Trump and his incoming administration, Musk may be the most powerful unelected person in America right now.

First of all, there is his role in DOGE. And the fact that he appears to be pursuing foreign policy for Trump. And that he used Twitter to temporarily reject a federal funding bill this month.

We don’t know how long this agreement will last and what impact Musk will have. But we know that a man who has the power to influence the way American government operates is the same man who can change the way he runs Twitter depending on his current feelings. We shouldn’t ignore that.

Read the original article on Business Insider