News
First Twitter Files of 2023 shows how intelligence community gained influence over the platform
The first Twitter Files of 2023 have been released by journalist Matt Taibbi, and they reveal how the intelligence community gained the influence it had over the platform. It begins in August 2017 when Facebook suspended 300 accounts with “suspected Russian origin.”
1.THREAD: The Twitter Files
How Twitter Let the Intelligence Community In— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 3, 2023
However, Twitter’s leaders weren’t worried because they were sure there wasn’t a Russia problem. Screenshots of emails from Twitter’s former Vice President, Global Public Policy & Philanthropy, Colin Crowell, and Twitter’s former legal head, Vijaya Gadde, confirm that Twitter had been in contact with Facebook and agreed that the best public relations strategy was to say nothing on record and to issue a statement bringing them “closer to Facebook, their vulnerabilities on this issue, and the follow-up stories on Russia.”
In another email, Crowell noted that Twitter wasn’t the focus of inquiry into Russian election meddling but that the spotlight was on Facebook. The screenshot revealed that a group of Twitter executives were “due to see the Democratic staff of the Senate Intelligence Committee” in a non-public and private meeting.
In the section of the email titled Important Context, Crowell wrote: “Twitter is not the focus of inquiry into Russian election meddling right now – the spotlight is on FB because FB has better targeting ability than we have for campaign-related advertising; and, because the Trump campaign spent massively on FB during the election compared to what they spent w/us.”

Credit: Matt Taibbi
Following that, Twitter suspended 22 possible Russian accounts and 179 others with “possible links” to those accounts out of a larger set of 2,700 suspects that were manually examined. Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, wasn’t too happy with Twitter. He held a press conference to denounce Twitter’s report as “frankly inadequate on every level.”
Crowell’s response was “#Irony” after he received an email from Warner’s re-election campaign asking for $5. Following that, Crowell met with congressional leaders and told his team at Twitter to keep producing material.
“Warner has political incentive to keep this issue at the top of the news, maintain pressure on us and rest of industry to keep producing material for them.”

Credit: Matt Taibbi
He added that the Democrats were taking cues from Hillary Clinton, who said, “It’s time for Twitter to stop dragging its heels and live up to the fact that its platform is being used as a tool for cyber-warfare.”

Credit: Matt Taibbi
This led Twitter to form a Russia Task Force due to anxiety over its PR problems. The task force began with data shared from counterparts at Facebook; however, Taibbi noted that those searches of accounts tied to Russia’s Internet Research Agency (IRA) were a dud.
One screenshot read: “No evidence of a coordinated approach, all of the accounts found seem to be lone-wolf type activity.”
Another one pointed out that after manually reviewing 2,500 accounts, they thought it was exhaustive. “32 suspicious accounts and only 17 of those are connected with Russia, only 2 of those have significant spend one of which is Russia Today…remaining <$10k in spend.”
Taibbi noted that the search found “only 2” significant accounts based on the same data that later inspired panic headlines such as “Russian Influence Reached 126 million through Facebook alone.”
Twitter’s failure of its Russian task force to produce material made its PR crisis worse. Several stories sourced into the Intel Committee were reported on in the news. This led Twitter to change its thoughts on the smallness of its Russia problem.
Senate staff told Twitter leaders that Senator Warner felt like the tech industry was in denial for months, and Twitter “pledged to work with them on their desire to legislate.”
Following that, Twitter’s Policy Director, Carlos Monje, shared key highlights of the legislation that Senators Warner, Klobuchar, and McCain were introducing.
“Knowing that our ads policy and product changes are an effort to anticipate congressional oversight, I wanted to share some relevant highlights of the legislation Senators Warner, Klobuchar and McCain will be introducing,”

Credit: Matt Taibbi
As Twitter began preparing its ads policy and removing RT and Sputnik to placate Washington, the committees leaked the larger list of 2,700 accounts. This led to a media circus, with Twitter being the star of the show. Internally, Twitter didn’t want to endorse the findings by Buzzfeed and the University of Sheffield, which said they found a new network on Twitter with close connections to Russian-linked bot accounts.

Credit: Matt Taibbi

Credit: Matt Taibbi
The Senate asked Twitter for a write-up of what happened when the Buzzfeed piece came out. Twitter then apologized for the same accounts it initially told the Senate was not a problem. This led to a new revelation. “Reporters now know this is a model that works.”
Taibbi noted that this cycle would later be formalized in partnerships with federal law enforcement. And this is how the intelligence community gained its influence over Twitter. In public, Twitter would remove content “at our sole discretion.”
Privately, the platform would “off-board” anything that was “identified by the U.S. intelligence community as state-sponsored entity conducting cyber-operations.”
If you would like to access all of the Twitter files, an archival website has been built, which includes all of the threads as organized, long-form blog posts and links to articles written by the independent journalists who have released the Twitter Files.
Your feedback is welcome. If you have any comments or concerns or see a typo, you can email me at johnna@teslarati.com. You can also reach me on Twitter at @JohnnaCrider1.
Teslarati is now on TikTok. Follow us for interactive news & more. Teslarati is now on TikTok. Follow us for interactive news & more. You can also follow Teslarati on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
Elon Musk
Tesla analyst: ‘near zero chance’ Elon Musk’s $1T comp package is rejected
“There is a near-zero chance that $TSLA shareholders will vote down Elon’s new proposed comp plan at the Nov 6 shareholders’ meeting.”
A Tesla analyst says there is “zero chance” that CEO Elon Musk’s new compensation package is rejected, a testament to the loyalty and belief many shareholders and investors have in the frontman.
Tesla investors will vote on November 6 at the annual Shareholder Meeting to approve a new compensation package for Musk, revealed by the company’s Board of Directors earlier this month.
The package, if approved, would give Musk the opportunity to earn $1 trillion in stock, an ownership concentration of over 27 percent (a major request of Musk’s), and a solidified future at the company.
The Tesla Community on X, the social media platform Musk bought in 2023, is overwhelmingly in favor of the pay package, though a handful of skeptics remain.
Nevertheless, the big pulls of this vote are held by proxy firms and other large-scale investors. Two of them, Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and Glass Lewis, said they would be voting against Musk’s proposed compensation plan.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s $1 trillion pay package hits first adversity from proxy firm
Today, the State Board of Administration of Florida (SBA) said it would vote in favor of Musk’s newly-proposed pay day, making it the first large-scale shareholder to announce it would support the CEO’s pay.
One analyst said that Musk’s payday is inevitable. Gary Black of the Future Fund said today there is a “near-zero chance” that shareholders will allow Musk’s pay package to be rejected:
“There is a near-zero chance that $TSLA shareholders will vote down Elon’s new proposed comp plan at the Nov 6 shareholders’ meeting.”
He added an alternative perspective from Wedbush’s Dan Ives, who said that he had a better chance of starting for the New York Yankees than the comp package not being approved.
There is a near zero chance that $TSLA shareholders will vote down Elon’s new proposed comp plan at the Nov 6 shareholders’ meeting. As Wedbush analyst Dan Ives (@divestech) colorfully put it in a Yahoo Finance interview on October 23rd: “I have a better chance of starting for…
— Gary Black (@garyblack00) October 27, 2025
Black’s the Future Fund sold its Tesla holdings earlier this year. He explained that the firm believed the company’s valuation was too disconnected from fundamentals, citing the P/E ratio of 188x and declining earnings estimates.
The firm maintained its $310 price target, and shares were trading at $356.90 that day.
Shares closed at $452.42 today.
The latest predictions from betting platform Kalshi have shown Musk’s comp package has a 94 percent chance of being approved:
— Kalshi (@Kalshi) October 20, 2025
Elon Musk
Tesla gains massive vote of confidence on compensation plan for Elon Musk
“”The SBA supported Tesla’s 2018 performance award proposal and reaffirmed that support in the 2024 Tesla shareowner vote. The total return on Tesla’s stock after enactment of its 2018 performance award and the prior history of incentive structured plans leads us to strongly support the proposed 2025 CEO performance award.”
Tesla gained a massive vote of confidence on its proposed $1 trillion compensation plan for CEO Elon Musk from the State Board of Administration of Florida (SBA) on Monday.
On Monday, the SBA submitted a filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) stating that it would vote to support Musk’s compensation plan, just as it did with the 2018 performance award and its second vote last year:
“The SBA supported Tesla’s 2018 performance award proposal and reaffirmed that support in the 2024 Tesla shareowner vote. The total return on Tesla’s stock after enactment of its 2018 performance award and the prior history of incentive structured plans leads us to strongly support the proposed 2025 CEO performance award. We believe the proposed award continues to promote an aggressive strategy to align incentives between management and shareowners and focuses solely on pecuniary factors and long-term shareowner value creation.”
This is the first large-scale shareholder that has come out and supported Musk’s potential compensation plan, which was outlined by Tesla and its Board of Directors earlier this month.
Most of the news surrounding Musk’s pay plan has been the opposite of what the SBA said today, as Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and Glass Lewis, two proxy firms, said they would be voting against the compensation package.
Tesla Board Chair defends Elon Musk’s pay plan, slams proxy advisors
Musk replied to their vote last week during the Q3 Earnings Call, calling them “corporate terrorists.”
He said:
“I just don’t feel comfortable building a robot army here and then being ousted because of some asinine recommendations from ISS and Glass Lewis, who have no freaking clue. I mean, those guys are corporate terrorists. The problem, yeah. Let me explain, like, the core problem here is that so many of the index funds, passive funds, vote along the lines of whatever Glass Lewis and ISS recommend. They’ve made many terrible recommendations in the past. If those recommendations had been followed, they would have been extremely destructive to the future of the company.”
SBA’s perspective on the plan relies on what Musk has done in the past decade with Tesla, as he has driven company growth, increased shareholder value, and kept the company on track with its lofty and ambitious goals.
It also outlined nine reasons to support Musk’s compensation:
- Pure Pay for Performance Design – Entirely Performance-Based, aligns with Shareowners
- Size of the Award and Share Count – Performance-based allocation, dilution tied to value creation, structured milestone design
- Market Capitalization Milestones – Clear, tiered targets, sustained performance requirement, shareholder value focus
- Operational/Product Milestones – Clear, quantifiable goals, strategic product focus, financial discipline, multi-quarter evaluation windows
- Vesting/Holding Periods – Long-term vesting structure, mandatory holding period, continuous service requirement
- CEO Succession – Succession planning requirement, performance integrity safeguard
- Time Horizon and Duration – Extended performance window of 10 years, no intermediate vesting
- Dilution & Voting Power Implications – Potential for significant ownership increase, permanent dilution
- Ambition and Stretch Goals – Extraordinary Scale of Growth, Shareowner value focus
Shareholders will vote on Musk’s compensation package on November 6 at the annual Shareholder Meeting.
News
Tesla Optimus gets its latest job, and it’s not in the company’s factories
Tesla Optimus was spotted in its latest job placement, not at any of the company’s manufacturing or production facilities.
Optimus was instead spotted in New York City at Times Square, handing out Halloween candy to people:
Just saw Optimus in Times Square handing out candy to people! Pretty cool $tsla pic.twitter.com/Eg5Q8KH17H
— Will Coggins (@Patient_Profits) October 27, 2025
It is not Tesla Optimus’s first gig in the service industry, as it has already secured several employment opportunities through the company’s projects. Last year, it served drinks at the company’s We, Robot day, where the Cybercab and Robovan were unveiled.
Additionally, Optimus has been helping out at the Tesla Diner in Los Angeles, serving popcorn and greeting guests.
Elon Musk reveals big plans for Tesla Optimus at the Supercharger Diner
Optimus has many capabilities, and its applications can benefit both residential and commercial users. It is designed to be an at-home assistant, helping with tedious, monotonous tasks around the house.
In a commercial setting, Optimus will be programmed to handle everything from manufacturing to other factory-type tasks, as Tesla has already been using the robot in its own factories for smaller jobs.
Optimus has been in development for several years, but Tesla is ready to turn up the heat in terms of its capabilities and engineering as it prepares to launch it to a wider audience in the coming years.
During the recent Q3 Earnings Call, Tesla CEO Elon Musk gave updates on the Optimus project, highlighting its progress and the company’s current development status.
Musk said that Tesla is “on the cusp of something really tremendous with Optimus, which I think is likely to be, has the potential to be, the biggest product of all time.” He also mentioned that Tesla is in an interesting position because not only has it established itself as one of the biggest car companies in the country, but it’s the only company that manufactures vehicles and has a monumental grasp of the importance of AI and robotics.
“I’m unaware of any robot program by Ford or GM or, you know, by U.S. car companies,” he said.
Musk added that Optimus has some pretty big responsibilities around Tesla’s factories:
“I mean, bringing Optimus to market is an incredibly difficult task, to be clear. It’s not like some walk in the park. At some point, I mean, actually, technically, Optimus can walk in the park right now. We do have Optimus robots that walk around our offices at our engineering headquarters in Palo Alto, California, basically twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.”
Right now, it appears Tesla is having its biggest challenge with the Optimus project around the development of its hands and forearms, which Musk called “an incredible thing” on the human body:
“The human hand is an incredible thing. The more you study the human hand, the more incredible you realize it is, and why you need four fingers and a thumb, why the fingers have certain degrees of freedom, why the various muscles are of different strengths, and fingers are of different lengths. It turns out that those are all there for a reason…Making the hand and forearm, because most of the actuators, just like the human hand, the muscles that control your hand are actually primarily in your forearm. The Optimus hand and forearm are an incredibly difficult engineering challenge. I’d say it’s more difficult than the rest of the robot from an electromechanical standpoint.”
Tesla is stumped on how to engineer this Optimus part, but they’re close
Optimus is starting to get more visibility in the public, and Tesla’s move to put it smack dab in the middle of New York City is one that will certainly bring some additional eyes to its development.
-
Elon Musk2 weeks agoSpaceX posts Starship booster feat that’s so nutty, it doesn’t even look real
-
Elon Musk1 week agoTesla Full Self-Driving gets an offer to be insured for ‘almost free’
-
News1 week agoElon Musk confirms Tesla FSD V14.2 will see widespread rollout
-
News2 weeks agoTesla is adding an interesting feature to its centerscreen in a coming update
-
News2 weeks agoTesla launches new interior option for Model Y
-
News2 weeks agoTesla widens rollout of new Full Self-Driving suite to more owners
-
Elon Musk2 weeks agoTesla CEO Elon Musk’s $1 trillion pay package hits first adversity from proxy firm
-
News1 week agoTesla might be doing away with a long-included feature with its vehicles

