A string of institutions have turned their back on the former Twitter after the world's richest person used X to promote Donald Trump's successful bid for the US presidency and clashed with European governments.

Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and Ecologists in Action said they were among "hundreds of organisations, groups, journalist associations and thousands of people" to quit X on January 20, Trump's inauguration day.

Musk has made X "a danger for democracy" by promoting discourses "based on the ideas of the far right" and interfered in other countries' elections such as in Germany, they said in a joint statement.

"The constant generation of fake news" and growing "toxicity" also pushed the organisations away from X, which they said was silencing voices opposed to Musk's ideas.

The Spanish University Rectors' Conference announced it would stop posting on X, also citing concerns about disinformation as well as "behaviour that diverges from democratic values" and "unethical management".

Musk has gutted trust and safety teams, scaled back content moderation and restored known conspiracy theorists to X since purchasing it for $44 billion in 2022.

Musk has described himself as a "free speech absolutist" with a permissive attitude towards content, and defended the mass layoffs by pointing to the company's financial difficulties.

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