Did ’60 Minutes’ Get Silenced by Elon Musk?

Back in February, X owner Elon Musk called out 60 Minutes as “the biggest liars in the world” and said its reporters “deserve a long prison sentence.” Two days later, 60 Minutes made its final post on the social media app and hasn’t returned since. The show’s account on X (formerly Twitter) has 1.2 million followers and was very active until it quietly stopped posting seven months ago, typically sharing several tweets a day with followers.

So what has happened to it, and did Musk force 60 Minutes to go silent?

Awful Announcing‘s Sam Neumann reported on the situation, noting how CBS’ long-running news magazine program hasn’t posted on X since February 19, 2025. The last posts feature interview clips with Bob Dylan, Timothée Chalamet, and Chalamet’s high school drama teacher, Harry Shifman, discussing the Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown.

As Neumann wrote, “the most-watched newsmagazine in America, a show that’s been appointment television for 57 years — just stopped tweeting.”

60 Minutes continues to post on other social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and Bluesky, so it isn’t a case of the show abandoning social media altogether. Meanwhile, other CBS News and CBS programs continue to post on X, so it isn’t as if CBS has stopped using Musk’s app entirely.

So what happened? In February, 60 Minutes aired a segment about the funding cuts to the United States Agency for International Development by the Trump administration, led in part by Musk, who at the time was heading up the non-official Department of Government Efficiency.

“It was Musk who called USAID employees ‘worms,'” host Scott Pelley said on the show, as seen in the video below. “In a post, he gloated about feeding the agency into the ‘wood chipper.’ The world’s richest man cut off aid for the world’s poorest families. Musk spent nearly $250 million to get Trump and other Republicans elected. He collects billions in taxpayer dollars for his SpaceX rockets.”

After the show posted a link to the story on X on February 17, Musk replied, writing, “60 Minutes are the biggest liars in the world! They engaged in deliberate deception to interfere with the last election. They deserve a long prison sentence.”

60 Minutes are the biggest liars in the world! They engaged in deliberate deception to interfere with the last election.

They deserve a long prison sentence. https://t.co/de20vXO62X

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 17, 2025

Two days later, 60 Minutes made its final post on X and hasn’t returned to the platform since. The question is, why? Did the show choose to leave the app of its own volition? Or did Musk have the show silenced?

“When government officials can threaten to jail journalists for editorial decisions, and news organizations feel compelled to limit their distribution in response, that’s a democracy story, not just a media story,” Neumann stated, adding, “it says a great deal about the modern political and media environment” that 60 Minutes’ exit from X went so long with being noticed.

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Dan Rather Fears for CBS News if Paramount Takes Over CNN

60 Minutes has been under fire over the past year since President Donald Trump sued the show, CBS, and Paramount after he claimed his then-presidential rival, Kamala Harris, was edited in a way to make her look better during the election.

While many legal experts agreed that Trump’s claims were baseless, the suit was taken seriously, in part, due to Paramount Global’s merger with Skydance Media, which required government approval. On Tuesday, July 1, Paramount Global said it would pay $16 million to Trump as part of the settlement.

In April, Pelley told viewers live on air that the show’s longtime producer, Bill Owens, had chosen to depart after Paramount bosses reportedly asked the program to hold off on stories criticizing Trump.

CBS and 60 Minutes has yet to comment on the X situation.