Twitter's ex-VP says working with Elon Musk was the 'hardest experience' of her career

Ella Irwin was the head of Trust and Safety at Twitter after Elon Musk took over the micro-blogging site.

Ella Irwin, the former head of trust and safety for Twitter (now X), has said that working with Elon Musk was the "hardest experience" of her career. The senior executive, who has worked in similar roles at Google and Amazon, revealed that she and the X owner often differed when it came to handling fake news and freedom of speech.

The 48-year-old had been in the company for a year before she resigned following Musk's public criticism of moderation actions at X around the issue of misgendering.

“It absolutely was the hardest experience that I’ve gone through in my career,” Irwin said in an interview with NBC News while narrating the nature of her work under Musk's leadership. She added that she quit because it had become clear to her that “there was no longer alignment” between X and her “nonnegotiable principles.”

“One was this notion of freedom of speech versus freedom of reach,” she told the media house. “It was important to me that there was an understanding that hate speech, for example, violent graphic content, things like that, were not promoted, advertised, amplified.”

The other reason was the principle of user choice.

“I’m a big believer in giving people the ability to make the decisions that are right for them,” Irwin said. “Who they want to follow, what they don’t want to see, they should be able to create and choose their own adventure.”

Her comments come at a time when X is facing widespread criticism for its handling of misinformation and terrorist content around the Israel-Hamas war. While Elon Musk has suggested that X’s Community Notes feature can address misinformation and fake news, but Irwin said she thinks more needs to be done.

“It can’t be your one solution,” she told the NBC News. “It’s one of a whole toolbox of things that needs to happen.”

Read more: X to charge $1 a year for posting content. ‘Death of Twitter,’ say users