’60 Minutes’ hasn’t posted on X since February, shortly after Elon Musk wrote ‘They deserve a long prison sentence’

Something weird happened in February that nobody seems to have noticed.

60 Minutes — the most-watched newsmagazine in America, a show that’s been appointment television for 57 years — just stopped tweeting.

Their last post on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter was February 19. With 1.2 million followers, the 60 Minutes account regularly posts video snippets of segments at a reasonably consistent cadence, a practice they continue on other social platforms, but not on X.

So, what may have led to the sudden decommissioning of the popular X account?

Just a few days before the account went silent, 60 Minutes ran a story about USAID being defunded. Towards the end of that segment, there was this commentary on Musk’s role in the decision:

“It was Musk who called USAID employees worms,” said Scott Pelley. “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.”

Within an hour of 60 Minutes posting the link to the whole piece online, Musk fired back: “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

The 60 Minutes account had a few more tweets over the following two days, but since then, there’s been radio silence.

This isn’t a broader social media pullback. 60 Minutes continues posting regularly on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and Bluesky.

The award-winning news program has historically distributed content across every major platform, as is typical for media companies. For a show that built its reputation on comprehensive coverage to suddenly abandon one of the most relevant social platforms suggests something significant happened.

Awful Announcing reached out to 60 Minutes, but was unable to get a comment on the matter.

Somehow, the show’s exodus from X has gone unreported, which seems incredible given that one of television’s most important news programs went dark on a major social platform after its owner, who holds an official government position, threatened to imprison their staff. That certainly feels like news.

Also relevant is that 60 Minutes has been under intense pressure since Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit over the show’s interview with Kamala Harris. Executive Producer Bill Owens resigned in April after 37 years at CBS, saying in a memo that he could no longer make “independent decisions based on what was right for  60 Minutes.”

Owens fought against corporate pressure to apologize or settle with Trump, and it cost him his job. As one producer told CNN, “He sacrificed himself hoping it might make our corporate overlords wake up and realize they risk destroying what makes 60 Minutes great.”

The lawsuit was settled for $16 million.

The blowback from Musk’s tweet included Aaron Terr from The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, who pointed out that “throwing journalists in jail over their reporting is what authoritarian governments do in countries like China, Russia, and Iran.”

While Musk was certainly deserving of that blowback, it says a great deal about the modern political and media environment that a major news organization, apparently responding to those threats by stepping back from the platform, doesn’t even register as a story worth covering. 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.

60 Minutes hasn’t confirmed its reasoning, and there may be another explanation for why it suddenly stopped using one of its primary distribution channels; however, we aren’t entirely convinced that reason would be very compelling at this point.

What’s clear is that we’re looking at a situation where a major news organization stopped using a significant distribution platform immediately after its owner called for their imprisonment. The timing alone makes this worth going further under the hood, even if we might already know the answer.

While you won’t find it on X, 60 Minutes returns this Sunday and will air an interview with Dana White about the UFC’s Paramount deal and planned White House event.