Yoel Roth, who briefly assumed fired exec Vijaya Gadde’s role as head of Trust & Safety, has left Elon Musk’s company, along with other key executives including the chief compliance officer, chief privacy officer, and head of sales.
Roth became a focus of attention after Elon Musk’s takeover as the most prominent leftist remaining at the company, having previously described Donald Trump as a “racist tangerine” and his administration as “actual Nazis.”
The department Roth briefly led, Trust and Safety, was notorious for being the driving force of censorship at the company.
While Roth’s departure may help Elon Musk avoid criticism from conservatives that his commitment to restoring free speech on the platform, the departure of other top employees may cause a bigger headache for Twitter’s new owner.
The simultaneous departure of the chief compliance officer, who is responsible for ensuring Twitter stays in line with government regulations, and the chief privacy officer, who handles sensitive issues of user data that have often been a focus of political and regulatory scrutiny, has given the Federal Trade Commission the chance to fire a warning shot.
“We are tracking recent developments at Twitter with deep concern,” said Douglas Farrar, the FTC’s director of public affairs, in a comment to Reuters following the departure of the two employees.
“No CEO or company is above the law, and companies must follow our consent decrees. Our revised consent order gives us new tools to ensure compliance, and we are prepared to use them.”
As the Reuters report noted, Twitter already had to pay a whopping $150 million to the FTC earlier this year, before Musk took over the company, to settle allegations that it used users’ private information to target ads to users after promising the data would only be used for security purposes.
President Biden has also warned that Musk’s Twitter deal could be investigated, another sign that the left-media establishment is preparing for war against the platform if its new owner restores free speech as promised.
Biden pointed to foreign investors in the Twitter deal as a potential reason for an investigation, seemingly a reference to the platform’s Saudi Arabian investors — even though the Saudis have major investors in Twitter for over a decade, without a peep of complaint from Democrat officeholders.
Twitter’s new owner continues to face major hurdles, and has been frank about the challenges ahead. As advertisers, under pressure from leftist activist groups, withdraw from the platform, Musk has told employees that the company faces severe cost-cutting and possible bankruptcy if it does not find new revenue streams.
Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. He is the author of #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election.