Twitter suspended the accounts of journalists covering the social media platform and its new owner, Elon Musk, on Thursday, including reporters from The New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, Voice of America, and other publications.

The company has not explained to the journalists why it deactivated the accounts and deleted their profiles and previous tweets. On Thursday night, Musk took to Twitter to accuse journalists of sharing private information about his whereabouts, which he described as "basically assassination coordinates." He provided no evidence to back up his claim.

The abrupt suspension of news reporters followed Musk's decision on Wednesday to permanently ban an account that tracked his private jet's flights using publicly available data. This prompted Twitter to change its policies for all users, making it illegal to share another person's current location without their permission.

Several of the journalists suspended Thursday night had been writing about the new policy and Musk's reasoning for instituting it, which included his allegations about a stalking incident that he said affected his family on Tuesday night in Los Angeles.

"The same doxing rules apply to 'journalists' as to everyone else," Musk wrote on Twitter on Thursday. "Criticizing me all day is totally fine," he later added, "but tracking my real-time location and endangering my family is not."

Doxxing is the online disclosure of someone's identity, address, or other personal information.

Sally Buzbee, the executive editor of the Washington Post, demanded that technology reporter Drew Harwell's Twitter account be reinstated immediately. "Elon Musk's claim that he intends to run Twitter as a platform dedicated to free speech is directly undermined," Buzbee wrote. "Harwell was expelled without warning, process, or explanation after publishing accurate reporting about Musk."

The screenshot showed a statement sent earlier Thursday to multiple media outlets, including The Associated Press, by the Los Angeles Police Department about how it was in contact with Musk's representatives about the alleged stalking incident, but that no crime report had yet been filed.

“I did not share any location data, as per Twitter’s new terms. Nor did I share any links to ElonJet or other location-tracking accounts,” Binder said in an email. “I have been highly critical of Musk but never broke any of Twitter’s listed policies.”

Binder claimed that a message he received while attempting to access his Twitter account revealed that his suspension was permanent. However, in response to a question about his suspension of former ESPN and MSNBC host Keith Olbermann, Musk later suggested the penalty would last a week.

Musk briefly participated in a Twitter Spaces conference chat hosted by Buzzfeed journalist Kate Notopoulos late Thursday. He reiterated his claims that the journalist's Twitter accounts were "doxxing" him when they reported on the jet tracking accounts being banned.

"There is no special treatment for journalists," Musk said when asked if there was a link between the stalking incident and the posting of real-time information by the Post's Drew Harwell.

"You dox, you get suspended, end of story," he added before signing out abruptly. The Spaces came to an end shortly after 9 p.m. Pacific time.

"Sorry, it appears the Space cut out, the screen went blank on my end and everyone got booted," host Notopoulos tweeted at 9:14 p.m. Pacific time.

Steve Herman of Voice of America, another suspended reporter, said he believes he was banned "because I was tweeting about other journalists being suspended for tweeting about accounts being booted that had linked to the Elon Jet feed."

The suspensions come as Musk makes significant changes to Twitter's content moderation. He has attempted to claim, through the release of selected company documents dubbed "The Twitter Files," that the platform suppressed right-wing voices under previous leaders.

He has promised to allow free speech to flourish and has restored high-profile accounts that had previously violated Twitter's rules against hateful behaviour or harmful misinformation, but he has also stated that he will suppress negativity and hate by denying some accounts "freedom of reach."

The non-profit Committee to Protect Journalists, which defends journalists around the world, expressed concern about the suspensions on Thursday night.

"If confirmed as retaliation for their work, this would be a serious violation of journalists' right to report the news freely," the group said.