X reached out to me, saying we violated some ToS by selling data and selling some things that bypassed API keys.

We don't do that, never did, never will.

They linked directly to my open source code as the reason for deletion.

Code I didn't even mostly write, was hacked together from other OSS stuff

They said they'd get off our back if we paid $50k/mo for the Enterprise license

We pay $1k/mo for the yellow check and $200/mo for the dev license

Why would an enterprise account change my ability to publish open source code?

It was extortion, plain and simple, and it shouldn't be legal

I don't want to be part of a system like that. It's everything I stand against.

Debating whether to make this a legal issue or not

You’ll lose the case.
You used a library that cracks the frontend requests to bypass usage of the API.
It violates TOS, so the ban would be reasonable.
They’re pure extractors.
But looking for a compromise is worthy.
Best of luck to you solving this.

looking for a grain of truth in this delusional space

It doesn’t violate the TOS but they could change the TOS and be well within their legal rights, yeah.

There was a time when the API was free (before Elon bought it)

Pure extraction

Not a fight worth fighting even if there was a victory