Musk says Twitter will 'absolutely' refuse payments to censor after platform took $3.4m from FBI

New Twitter CEO Elon Musk on Tuesday pledged to "absolutely" not accept payments to censor stories after revelations in the so-called "Twitter Files" showed that the social media company had received more than $3.4 million from the FBI.

"Government paid Twitter millions of dollars to censor info from the public," Musk tweeted in a post directing users to a Twitter thread from reporter Michael Shellenberger, who released the seventh edition of the Twitter Files.

Shellenberger on Monday posted an image of a February 2021 email to Twitter's then-special counsel Jim Baker, who previously served as FBI general counsel. The sender, whose name is blocked, tells Baker: "I am happy to report we have collected $3,415,323 since October 2019!" The money came as a "reimbursement for the time spent processing requests from the FBI," the sender said.