Twitter has started banning accounts that make fun of Elon Musk following his takeover of the platform.
One account with 2.3m followers, called h3h3Productions, was banned on Monday morning (November 7) after changing its display name to the name of the Tesla tycoon and using an outdated image of the billionaire.
The account also changed its bio to specify it was a parody account and changed its banner to a picture that read "parody account" before tweeting out a controversial comment, VICE News reported.
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The tweet read: "Even though Jeffery Epstein committed horrible crimes, I do still miss him on nights like this for his warmth and comradery. Rest In Peace old friend."
The account was then banned from Twitter, despite Musk's claims that his takeover of Twitter was motivated by his love of free speech.
It seems now though that the mogul has had a change of heart.
"Going forward, any Twitter handles engaging in impersonation without clearly specifying 'parody' will be permanently suspended," Musk tweeted on Sunday (November 6) – despite the fact h3h3Productions had made the specification.
"Previously, we issued a warning before suspension, but now that we are rolling out widespread verification, there will be no warning."
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And h3h3Productions hasn't been the only victim of Musk's banning splurge in recent weeks – another casualty was the cartoonist Jeph Jacques, who prior to his ban boasted 82.6k followers on the platform.
Jacques also changed his name to "Elon Musk" and, similarly to h3h3Productions, changed his profile photo to an old snap of Musk.
From the account, he tweeted comments like: "Grimes NEVER said I had a 'weird d***' and 'smelled like nachos' and if you repost this you will be arrested."
Comedian Kathy Griffin, with 2m followers, was another to change her display name and encouraged her followers to vote Democrat, despite Musk recently coming out in support of the Republican Party.
Musk had previously tried to pull out of his deal to purchase the social media platform for a whopping $44billion (£38.2bn), but was eventually forced to go through with the deal for legal reasons.
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Twitter managed to seal the deal after arguing Musk was obligated to buy the company, for a price of $54.20 (£47) per share, and that he didn't have any legal way to wriggle out of the deal.
Musk may also have incurred a fine of half a million dollars (£433,700) for his mass cull of Twitter staff last week.
On Friday, November 4 the SpaceX CEO reportedly fired half of the social network's 7500 members of staff over email, prompting the possible punishment after ex-employees were given less notice than is required in the state of California, according to Newsweek.
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