Twitter’s billionaire owner Elon Musk has responded to the Northern Ireland secretary of state after he called for fake news to be eliminated from the platform.
The exchange came after Chris Heaton-Harris rubbished rumours of his resignation after a fake email was circulated.
Mr Heaton-Harris described the fake resignation email as “utter tosh”.
The world’s richest man replied, asking: “What does a tosh look like?”
He then replied to Mr Musk on Twitter, joking that he had been referring to “and/or the content of my speeches”.
An email, purporting to be from the Northern Ireland Office, was sent to print titles on the Northern Ireland Office’s media circulation list from an anonymous account – “pressreleasing16@gmail.com”.
Coming hours after Mr Heaton-Harris extended the deadline for calling a fresh Stormont election, it contained a fake quote saying the NI Secretary had resigned for “personal reasons”.
A short time later, the NIO alerted media outlets to rebut the fake email and confirmed Mr Heaton-Harris remained in post.
On Thursday morning Mr Heaton-Harris said he thought an email system had been hacked, joking: “I thought it was my mum.”
