• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, November 7, 2022

If comedian Kathy Griffin didn't impersonate Twitter CEO Elon Musk this past weekend, misleading people on the social network to believe he would vote Democrat in Tuesday's election, the general public might not know his political views. 

Some called it a joke. The post’s string of comments included a picture of Griffin giving the bird. Musk could not find any humor or parody in the prank, and suspended Griffin’s Twitter account.

Following the suspension, Musk on Monday issued a surprising statement on Twitter, officially endorsing the Republican Party just one day before the midterm vote.

“To independent-minded voters: Shared power curbs the worst excesses of bother parties, therefore I recommend voting for a Republican Congress, given that the Presidency is Democrat,” he wrote.

Griffin’s page was suspended Sunday, the day she changed her account's name to "Elon Musk" and used his photo to mock and spread misinformation about the Tesla founder.

"Previously, we issued a warning before suspension, but now that we are rolling out widespread verification, there will be no warning. This will be clearly identified as a condition for signing up to Twitter Blue," he wrote.

Musk wrote that any name change will lead to temporary loss of the verified checkmark.

Some Twitter users hit back at Musk for not only suspending Griffin’s account, but stepping in to share his political view.

Kanishka Raj Singh, a Twitter user, pointed to a tweet from Musk in April where he said "Twitter should be politically neutral,” which "effectively means upsetting the far right and the far left equally.”