Elon Musk attacked the New York Times on Saturday for failing to report how Biden employees asked Twitter executives to delete tweets related to malicious content on Hunter Biden’s laptop.
Other left-leaning media outlets such as CBS News, ABC and The Washington Post are also yet to report the “Twitter files,” although their content has caused a stir among American conservatives and free-speech advocates.
In response to the Times’ alleged lack of coverage, Musk described the newspaper as an “unregistered lobbying firm for far-left politicians.”
The comment came in response to a tweet from conservative radio host Clay Travis, who said: “There is not a single article about @elonmusk this morning or the @twitter email posting last night on the @nytimes app.”
Musk replied, “That’s because The New York Times has become, by all accounts, an unregistered lobbying firm for far-left politicians.”
Elon Musk on Friday promoted a Twitter thread by journalist Matt Taibbi in which he published, among other things, correspondence among Twitter employees in 2020
Musk targeted the New York Times on Saturday for failing to cover the emails
Conservative radio host Clay Travis noted on Twitter that the Times did not report on the Twitter emails
Musk replied to Travis that he believed the Times was a “lobby firm for far-left politicians.”
On Friday, Musk promoted a Twitter thread by journalist Matt Taibbi, in which he published, among other things, correspondence between Twitter employees in 2020.
In it, they discuss censoring a New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s laptop and allude to requests from Biden’s team to do so – something Twitter continued to do.
“Twitter took extraordinary steps to suppress the story, removing links and posting warnings that it may be ‘unsafe’.
“They even blocked direct messaging, a tool previously reserved for extreme cases such as child pornography,” Taibbi said in a tweet that was part of the thread.
Notably, in one exchange, one Twitter executive emailed another a list of tweets directing “More to review from the Biden team.”
The other executive responded, “processed this”.
One of two stories published by The Times after the emails were published included one citing sources who indicated that Twitter’s advertising revenue had declined
The Washington Post wrote similarly about Musk and Twitter on Saturday, but made no mention of the Twitter files. A story about a rise in anti-Semitism was the leading story on her website on Saturday night
CNN reported the news but suggested the emails merely “confirmed what was already known about the incident.”
Publications that have covered the story include POLITICO, NBC and CNN. The latter dampened the news by suggesting that the leaked emails “confirmed what was already known about the incident”.
The Daily Beast echoed this sentiment, but discussed the Twitter files in an article headlined, “‘Deeply Underwhelmed’: Rights to Musk’s Overhyped ‘Twitter Files'”.
In another article on Saturday, The Times criticized Musk for allowing hate speech to flourish under his leadership
The Daily Beast elaborated on the Twitter files, but implied they were underwhelming and revealed nothing new
NBC News was one of the few major news organizations to report on the Twitter files
Although the New York Times hasn’t written about the thread yet, it ran two different stories about Musk and Twitter on Saturday, the day after it was published.
The first of these stories, “The rise of hate speech on Twitter is unprecedented, researchers find,” criticized Musk for a rise in hate speech since his acquisition of the social media company.
The other, “Twitter continues to miss ad targets because Woes Mount,” also slammed Musk’s management of the platform, suggesting current US ad revenue is 80 percent below internal expectations.
The Washington Post followed a similar trend. The lead story on its website Saturday night, “Surging Twitter Antisemitism Unites Margins and Encourages Violence, Officials Say,” similarly cited sources who indicated that antisemitic language on Twitter had increased since Musk’s acquisition.
POLITICO was a major publication dealing with the Twitter files as early as Friday night. While it didn’t address Taibbi’s specific allegations, it did link to his 35 tweet thread.