Musk Claps Back at Journalist Matt Taibbi Over Twitter-Substack Rivalry

Journalist Matt Taibbi helped the billionaire bring the truth to light about how censorship and Washington-backed propaganda work on social media by releasing several batches of the Twitter Files.

Elon Musk has denied allegations that Twitter blocked the links of the online platform, Substack, and claimed that reporter Matt Taibbi, whom he trusted with disclosing the Twitter Files, was working for the rival platform.

1. Substack links were never blocked. Matt’s statement is false.

2. Substack was trying to download a massive portion of the Twitter database to bootstrap their Twitter clone, so their IP address is obviously untrusted.

3. Turns out Matt is/was an employee of Substack.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 8, 2023

Musk's reaction came on the heels of Taibbi's Friday announcement that he was quitting Twitter, which was purchased by the Tesla CEO last year, because the platform became, in the reporter's words, “unusable”. Taibbi revealed that he would opt for Substack’s new Notes feature instead, after Twitter allegedly restricted tweets with Substack links on the platform, labelling them as “unsafe.”

Taibbi was one of a few journalists granted access by Musk to the 'Twitter Files', a trove of documents unveiling the ugly truth about the social media platform's collaboration with the US government to quash free speech worldwide.

The independent reporter testified before the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, where he stressed that American government agencies involved in submitting moderation requests to Twitter included the FBI, the CIA, the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security. He also mentioned private entities that also influenced Twitter's moderation policy, namely, the National Endowment for Democracy, the Alliance for Securing Democracy and the Stanford Internet Observatory.

He stated that there is a clandestine network of tech companies, US government agencies and private organizations that suppresses freedom of speech, promotes the liberal agenda and spreads misinformation in order to whitewash US government malfeasance. Consequently, he dubbed this network the “Censorship-Industrial Complex.”

According to the demands of these "deep state" structures, Twitter and other social media companies would 'moderate' content, like limiting access to the Hunter Biden laptop story or ban accounts of conservative politicians.