Retired Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman issued tech billionaire and X owner Elon Musk a warning following the arrest of Telegram CEO Pavel Durov, saying he “should be nervous” about being next.
Vindman, who testified against then-President Donald Trump during the November 2019 House impeachment hearings and claimed that he was withholding military aid to Ukraine in exchange for dirt on then-presidential candidate Joe Biden, made the controversial X post on Sunday:
“While Durov holds French citizenship, is arrested for violating French law, this has broader implications for other social media, including Twitter,” he wrote. “There’s a growing intolerance for platforming disinfo & malign influence & a growing appetite for accountability.”
“Musk should be nervous,” Vindman added.
The post came shortly after Durov, the Russian-born tech executive who co-founded Telegram, was arrested Saturday by French authorities due to a “lack of moderation” over his platform.
Durov, 39, was taken into custody on a warrant related to “various violations of his encrypted messaging service,” according to French publication Le Monde.
“Telegram has shielded itself from state moderation rules, at a time when the European Union and the United States are putting pressure on major platforms to remove illegal content,” the outlet stated.
France’s Office to Combat Violence Against Minors (OFMIN) issued the warrant as part of an investigation into “offenses ranging from fraud, drug trafficking, cyberbullying, organized crime, glorification of terrorism, and fraud,” a source told the newspaper.
Telegram responded to the allegations in a Sunday post in its channel on the app, arguing that the CEO has nothing to conceal and that it is unreasonable to hold a platform or its owner accountable for alleged misuse by users, Breitbart News reported.
Despite Vindman’s post claiming that there is a “growing appetite for accountability” on social media sites, free speech advocates — such as former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., podcast host Lex Fridman, and journalist Saagar Enjeti — denounced the arrest as an attack on liberty:
Musk himself responded to a post calling out censorship, including that of Telegram, writing, “Dangerous times”:
