EXCLUSIVE

Elon Musk’s social media platform X (formerly Twitter) was stripped of its membership to Australian technology lobby group DIGI (Digital Industry Group Inc) earlier this year due to unpaid fees, the not-for-profit organisation says.

“X's membership was suspended due to unpaid membership fees,” a DIGI spokesperson told Information Age.

The suspension occurred in June “in relation to [X’s] 2025 calendar year invoice”, they added.

The DIGI spokesperson said X had not provided DIGI with any prior notification that it would stop paying its membership fees, nor that it no longer wanted to be a member of DIGI.

X disputed that it had not paid its DIGI membership fees when it was contacted this week by Information Age.

“We’re a paid-up member of DIGI,” an X spokesperson said.

DIGI later confirmed that payment from X had since been received, but did not confirm whether the company would thereby be reinstated as a member.

The apparent late payment suggests X had potentially forgotten for months to pay its DIGI membership fees for the 2025 calendar year.

X declined to respond to questions regarding whether it had forgotten to pay DIGI, or whether it had not realised the lobby group no longer listed X as a member.

X’s name and logo were removed from the DIGI website sometime between late July and early August, according to archived copies of the site.

Twitter was a founding and longtime member of DIGI, which still represents other major technology companies such as Apple, Meta, Google, Microsoft, and TikTok.

The organisation does not publicly share its membership prices.

DIGI routinely contributes to industry codes for online safety in Australia, and recently worked on those related to age assurance for adult content and on search engines while advocating for its member companies.

The nation’s other tech lobby group, Tech Council of Australia (TCA), does not represent major social media platforms or contribute to online safety codes.

DIGI previously kicked X off misinformation code

After Twitter was purchased by Elon Musk in 2022 and renamed X in July 2023, DIGI removed Twitter as a listed member on its website in late 2023.

The industry group removed X as a signatory to its disinformation and misinformation code of practice soon after, following a “serious breach” of the code in which X did not provide any way for users to report political misinformation.

DIGI later relisted X as a member on its website on February 1, 2024, and the company’s name and logo remained there until at least mid-July 2025.

X remained absent from the list of members on DIGI’s website at the time of publication.


Australian-based tech lobby DIGI says X's membership was suspended in June over 'unpaid membership fees' for 2025. Images: Supplied

X took legal action in May against Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, over a new safety standard for harmful online content enforced by the commissioner.

That was after DIGI informed eSafety that its members — which included X at the time — had raised “considerable concern” about the new rules and accused the commissioner of a “lack of consultation”.

That case is ongoing, with the next hearings scheduled for May 2026.

‘Evolving priorities and budgets’

Australian social media technology firm Linktree — also a founding member of DIGI — was no longer listed as a DIGI member on the group’s website on 16 August 2024, after it dropped down to become only a supporter of DIGI’s work on digital industry codes.

Linktree did not respond to a request for comment.

DIGI said membership decisions were “a matter for individual companies”.

“In our experience, it’s not unusual for companies to adjust involvement in industry associations based on evolving priorities and budgets,” the group’s spokesperson said.

DIGI now listed 13 member companies on its website: Apple, Discord, eBay, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Snap Inc, Spotify, TikTok, Twitch, and Yahoo, as well as its most recent additions Hello Fresh and Pinterest.