Police in Southern California said Tuesday they were seeking additional information about an incident last week that Twitter CEO Elon Musk said prompted him to crack down on information about the whereabouts of his private jet.
The Dec. 13 incident near a Los Angeles-area highway has become a flashpoint for a debate about online speech and the dissemination of personal information, although authorities had previously said little about what happened.
Police in South Pasadena said in a statement Tuesday that, contrary to Musk’s assertions about the incident, they believe a member of Musk’s security team hit a man with his car and accused him of following him.
The police called the security team member a “suspect.” They did not say what crimes they suspected him of committing, but they said they were investigating a report of “an assault with a deadly weapon involving a vehicle.”
Musk’s description of the incident was different. Last week, in justifying his decision to ban the Twitter account @ElonJet for publishing the location of his private airplane, Musk said that a “stalker” had used location information from the account to follow and confront a car carrying one of his children.
The statement from South Pasadena police, though, contained no mention of a suspected stalker.
“At no time during the incident did the victim identify the suspect or indicate the altercation was anything more than coincidental,” police said.
Business Insider reporter Linette Lopez, who has covered Musk and Tesla for years, and ElonJet creator Jack Sweeney are among those still banned from Twitter.
Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the police statement.
