Elon Musk plans to build a new content moderation center for X in Austin

An aerial view of Austin, Texas.
X has plans to hire 100 people for a new content moderation center in Austin.Brandon Bell

X is hiring 100 employees for a content moderation center in Austin, Bloomberg reported.
The moderators will focus on combatting child sexual exploitation and enforcing other content rules.
Musk has fielded criticism for his approach to content moderation since taking over the platform.

Austin might be revving back up as a tech hub, thanks to Elon Musk.

X aims to hire 100 full-time workers for a new content moderation headquarters in Austin, the company’s head of business operations, Joe Benarroch, told Bloomberg.

Musk’s Tesla also employs tens of thousands of workers at its Austin gigafactory.

The company hasn’t said when the new center will open, but when it does, employees will focus on combatting content related to child sexual exploitation, along with enforcing X’s restrictions on hate speech, Benarroch told Bloomberg.

“X does not have a line of business focused on children, but it’s important that we make these investments to keep stopping offenders from using our platform for any distribution or engagement with CSE content,” Benarroch said.

X requires users to be at least 13, and less than 1% of its daily users are between 13 and 17, the company told Bloomberg.

Since he took control of X in October 2022, users have criticized Musk for his no-guardrails approach to the platform’s trust and safety operations.

After taking over, he quickly axed hundreds of content moderators and employees on the content moderation team — even as advertisers worried about a rise in hate speech on the platform.

Before Musk took over what was then called Twitter, he referred to himself as a “free speech absolutist” and criticized the platform for “failing to adhere to free speech principles,” which he said “fundamentally undermines democracy.”

The plans for the new center also come after Musk tried to prevent a California law that regulates online content moderation. The new law requires social media companies to publicly post information about how content is moderated in detailed annual reports.

With the lack of content moderation and the rise of questionable posts, X has struggled to grow its advertising revenue. So perhaps Musk is rethinking his strategy.