A video is being shared on social media claiming that Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk had fired Twitter’s former policy head Vijaya Gadde live on air. This post claims that the billionaire invited the head of Twitter’s policy department to a live broadcast and fired her during the programme. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Video showing Elon Musk firing Twitter’s former policy head Vijaya Gadde during a live broadcast session.
Fact: It is a parody video created by a Denmark-based content producer named Damon Imani. This video was created by editing video clips from Elon Musk’s and Vijaya Gadde’s old podcast interviews with Joe Rogan. After acquiring Twitter for $44 Billion, Elon Musk fired Twitter’s former CEO Paresh Agrawal, Vijaya Gadde and other top officials of Twitter. But Musk did not fire Vijaya Gadde during a live broadcast as claimed by the post. Hence, the claim made in the post is MISLEADING.
When we searched to check whether Elon Musk and Twitter’s former Policy Chief Vijaya Gadde were together in any live broadcast interview lately, we could not find any reports confirming this on the internet. Upon searching for the details of this video using the relevant keywords, we found that the clips showing Vijaya Gadde’s reaction in the video were taken from Gadde’s podcast interview with Joe Rogan in March 2019. Twitter’s co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey, Vijaya Gadde and an independent journalist named Tim Pool participated in this podcast with Joe Rogan. From 26:31 minutes of the video, one could see similar visuals of Vijaya Gadde admitting their failure at educating people about violation rules on Twitter and not being transparent. Elon Musk was not present in this old podcast interview with Joe Rogan .
On searching for further details, we found that the video clips showing Elon Musk in the post were taken from Elon Musk’s 2018 podcast interview with Joe Rogan. At 24:21 and 25:12 minutes of the video, one could see Elon Musk making similar hand and eye gestures as shown in the video shared in the post. During the interview, Elon Musk never spoke about the word penalty or fired an employee from his company.
On observing the video shared in the post carefully, one could see ‘@damonimani’ watermark on the top left of the video. When searched for the video using relevant keywords, we found the same video on the Instagram handle of a Denmark-based content producer named Damon Imani. Damon Imani published the video with a description, “FOOTAGE: Elon Musk fired Twitter’s head of censorship ON AIR! – parody!”
After acquiring Twitter for $44 Billion, Elon Musk fired Twitter’s former CEO Parag Agrawal and other top company officials including Vijaya Gadde, and become the sole director of Twitter. But, Elon Musk did not fire Vijaya Gadde during a live broadcast as claimed by the post.
To sum it up, a parody video is shared as visuals of Elon Musk firing Vijaya Gadde during a live broadcast.
