YouTuber Hank Green and Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk got into a brief spat on the social media platform after the former pointed out that the latter was losing advertisers because of his own actions. 

“Twitter has had a massive drop in revenue, due to activist groups pressuring advertisers, even though nothing has changed with content moderation and we did everything we could to appease the activists.

Extremely messed up! They’re trying to destroy free speech in America,” Musk wrote on Twitter. 

Companies like Volkswagen, Pfizer and General Mills have stopped advertising on Twitter for the time being, wary of Musk’s content moderation policies. 

Musk fired over half of Twitter’s staff on Friday via email and then rationalised his decision saying that the company was losing $4 million a day. He also added that he was offering those who had been fired three months severance. 

Also Read | Musk complains about activists destroying ‘free speech’ as companies push pause on advertising

Who is Hank Green?

Hank Green is an American vlogger, entertainer, author, internet producer and musician. He is best known for creating the Vlogbrothers channel on YouTube alongside his brother John Green, but he also produces and stars in two of his own shows, Crash Course and SciShow. 

The Green brothers are also the founders of VidCon, the world’s largest conference about online videos. Throughout his YouTube career, Hank Green has created several shows as well as produced a few. 

Green was born on May 5, 1980 in Birmingham, Alabama but his family soon moved to Orlando, Florida, where he grew up. He graduated from Winter Park High School in 1998 and then went on to study biochemistry at Eckerd College before doing a Master’s in Science in Environmental Studies from the University of Montana. 

He resides with his wife, Katherine in Missoula, Montana and the two have a child named Orin, who was born in 2016.