Casey Newton and John Gruber Slink Back to X

The piece condemns Casey Newton and John Gruber for returning to X under Elon Musk, portraying their explanations as flimsy rationalizations for re-engaging with a platform transformed into a right-wing propaganda machine. It catalogs Musk’s actions - mass firings, algorithmic tinkering to amplify his ego and right-wing content, fostering disinformation, and enabling harmful behavior - and rejects the claim that journalists must endure the platform to follow AI conversations. Newton’s stated reason - few alternatives host the AI crowd - is framed as masking financial and access incentives: ties to industry (an engagement to an Anthropic employee), lucrative podcast deals, and sizable grants that, the writer contends, encourage boosterism and blunt critical coverage.

John Gruber’s return is labeled tone-deaf for celebrating X as “cheerful” and supposedly de-Musked, while ignoring persistent algorithmic bias, rampant racist and sexist rhetoric, and content-safety failures including child-abuse material. The piece argues that celebrating a pleasant, insulated X bubble normalizes a billionaire-controlled megaplatform that suppresses dissent and rewards cozy relationships with tech power. Returning journalists are portrayed as trading ethical clarity and rigorous scrutiny of AI and corporate misconduct for audience reach and engagement, thereby enabling the very harms their scrutiny once helped expose.