How a mean, disrespectful tweet about Rachel Levine shaped the X platform Elon Musk bought and broke

Before Twitter became X, before Elon Musk stripped away protections for transgender users and before the platform earned the lowest LGBTQ+ safety score among major social networks, there was Adm. Rachel Levine, the trailblazing doctor and public health official from the Biden administration.

Or, more precisely, there was a deliberate act of humiliation aimed at her.

Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon now places Twitter’s response to his conservative satire outlet’s 2022 post misgendering Levine near the center of the origin story behind Musk’s $44 billion takeover.

Speaking at the 2026 Alliance Defending Freedom Summit earlier this month, Dillon said Musk contacted the Babylon Bee after Twitter locked its account over a post naming Levine, a transgender woman, its “Man of the Year.” Musk then called Babylon Bee editor-in-chief Kyle Mann, Dillon said.

“Maybe I just need to buy Twitter,” Musk said, according to Dillon. “We thought he was totally kidding,” Dillon told the audience in a video on the ADF’s YouTube page. Eight months later, he noted, Musk walked into Twitter’s headquarters as its owner.

The Advocate asked Musk and X whether Dillon’s description of the call was accurate and whether the post targeting Levine influenced Musk’s decision to purchase Twitter, but did not hear back.

Related: Elon Musk Dials Up Transphobia on Twitter, Says 'Cis' Is a Slur

Musk was already buying Twitter stock

Musk had already begun quietly buying Twitter shares before the Bee targeted Levine. Musk’s own securities filing shows that he began buying Twitter shares on January 31, 2022. The SEC later alleged that his holdings crossed the 5 percent ownership threshold on March 14 of that year before the Babylon Bee published its post targeting Levine.

The episode, therefore, did not create Musk’s initial interest in Twitter. But it appears to have become part of the ideological case for taking control of it.

The dispute began after USA Today selected Levine, then President Joe Biden’s assistant secretary for health, as one of its Women of the Year. Levine was the first out transgender person confirmed by the U.S. Senate and the first out transgender four-star officer in a U.S. uniformed service.

On March 15, 2022, the Babylon Bee responded by intentionally describing her as its “man of the year.” Dillon admitted that the outlet knew the post misgendered Levine and violated Twitter’s hateful conduct policy.

“We saw this coming,” he said. “We anticipated it.”

Twitter locked the account and required the Bee to delete the post before it could regain access. The outlet refused, turning the enforcement action into a conservative cause célèbre over what its leaders called censorship.

Related: Elon Musk demands users stop ‘deadnaming’ Twitter after Stephen King trolls the billionaire

An anti-trans attack became takeover lore

Dillon had said publicly in April 2022 that Musk “mused” during the call that he might need to buy Twitter. His latest speech sharpened that old anecdote into a takeover parable.

“If you’re the richest man in the world, you can just buy the platform,” Dillon said at the conference. The Bee, he said, has been trying to devise “a joke worth $44 billion” ever since.

Levine responded with restraint. “I generally don’t comment about acts of pettiness or cruelty that are directed to me,” Levine told The Advocate in a text message via her spokesperson. “But I’ll say that my training in adolescent medicine prepared me well for dealing with bullies. During my time at HHS, I remained laser focused on advancing the health and well-being of the American people.”

Jesse M. Ehrenfeld, MD, MPH, President of the American Medical Association; Admiral Rachel L. Levine, MD, the 17th Assistant Secretary for Health (ASH) for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; and Charlotte Clymer, writer, transgender activist, and military veteran speak on stage during Learning With Love: Paul Morigi/Getty Images for PFLAG National

The Human Rights Campaign said Musk’s ownership turned the platform into an engine for hostility toward transgender people and other marginalized communities.

“On his watch, Twitter has become a cesspool of transphobia, disinformation, and hatred directed at anyone who looks different from what Elon Musk sees in the mirror,” HRC communications director Laurel Powell told The Advocate. “He spent an unfathomable amount of money to twist an entire social media platform to his will.”

The episode also fits a broader pattern in Musk’s anti-transgender politics. In May, Musk replied “True” to an X post claiming that, had his transgender daughter Vivian Jenna Wilson not transitioned, he would never have bought Twitter or entered politics. He later wrote that Wilson had been “murdered by the woke mind virus” and that it would now “die.”

Walter Isaacson, Musk’s authorized biographer, previously reported that Wilson’s transition partly triggered Musk’s turn against what he calls “wokeness” and that Musk viewed Twitter as infected by the same ideology. Wilson has rejected Musk’s account of her childhood, saying he was largely absent and harassed her for her femininity and queerness.

Related: Libs of TikTok, other right-wingers lose it after X reinstates bans on misgendering, deadnaming trans people

X dismantled protections for transgender users

After Musk took over, Twitter quietly removed language from its hateful conduct policy in 2023 that had explicitly prohibited targeted misgendering and deadnaming — the conduct at the center of the Bee dispute. Musk later declared that “cis” and “cisgender” would be treated as slurs while saying misgendering was permitted.

The platform partially restored a policy addressing deliberate misgendering in 2024, but Musk quickly undercut it. When Libs of TikTok creator Chaya Raichik tested the rule by targeting Levine and other transgender people, Musk assured her that she would not be suspended.

The changes accompanied a measurable deterioration. The Advocate previously reported that the volume of posts calling LGBTQ+ people “groomers” increased 119 percent after Musk assumed control. It Gets Better stopped posting new material on X in 2023, saying hateful material was being elevated and the platform had become increasingly unsafe for the LGBTQ+ young people it serves.

X ranked last for LGBTQ+ safety

GLAAD’s 2026 Social Media Safety Index gave X a score of 29 out of 100, the lowest among the major platforms evaluated on LGBTQ+ safety, privacy and expression.

“Admiral Levine, a public servant devoted to the health, safety, and well-being of every American, was subjected to relentless targeted misgendering and deadnaming from high-follower hate accounts such as the Babylon Bee,” a GLAAD spokesperson told The Advocate. “These platforms are now even more of a haven for those who callously look to increase engagement by spewing anti-LGBTQ, especially anti-trans, rhetoric and fearmongering.”

GLAAD said allowing unchecked disinformation carries a price for those targeted and the companies encouraging it. The organization noted that 23 percent of Americans younger than 30 identify as LGBTQ+ and said platforms cultivating anti-LGBTQ+ environments risk alienating users, creators and advertisers.

“As transgender and nonbinary people face escalating attacks and extreme dehumanizing rhetoric from the right, these companies and their leaders face fundamental choices about how they express their values,” the spokesperson said.

Powell added, “Billionaires and political elites are going to find out how little the American people care for his divisive agenda when we send a pro-equality majority to Congress this year and kick what’s left of his DOGE cronies out of power in 2028."

Watch Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon retell X’s origin story below

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