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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.
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Tesla has officially launched the Model Y L in the United States and Puerto Rico for $61,990. It is the longer-wheelbase version of the Model Y, and has been available in China since last year.
Tesla brings the Model Y L to the U.S. just months after it phased out the only pure SUV in its lineup, the Model X. It is slightly longer than the Model Y configurations that are already available in the U.S., and features a three-row, six-seat setup with Captain’s Chairs being among the many features that make this a truly fantastic offering.
The Model Y L is priced competitively at $61,990, and features 325 miles of range and a 0-60 MPH in just 4.4 seconds.
Tesla also added a handful of new features that are not available in even the Premium Model Y. Here’s a full list of its features:
- Heated/Ventilated Front Seats with Powered Thigh Cushion
- Heated/Ventilated Captain’s Seats in Second Row with Powered Armrests & One-Touch Fold
- Heated Third-Row Seats with Power Recline, One-Touch Fold & Child Seat Anchors
- Improved Airflow, Increased Efficiency, More Range
- 89 cubic feet of trunk space
- Upgraded Acoustic Glass and Suspension to Minimize Road Noise
- Adaptive Damping for a Smooth, Stable Ride
- Staggered Tires for Enhanced Grip
- Larger Tailgate for Better Rear Visibility and Bigger Windows Overall
- 16″ First Row and 8″ Second Row Touchscreens
- 19-Speaker Immersive Tesla Audio
- 50W Wireless Charging Pads with Active Cooling and Charging Ports for All Other Seats
- FSD Supervised and Integrated Grok AI
Tesla is also delivering these first units as a “Launch Series,” which comes with additional features, such as:
- Door Trim Puddle Lights
- Suede Dashboard Wing
- Exterior and Interior Badging
- Floor Mats
- Sill Plates
The launch of the Model Y L in the U.S. marks a huge offering from Tesla to U.S. consumers. People have been calling for Tesla to bring a larger car to the U.S., and it needed it more than ever now that the Model X is gone.
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- Credit: Tesla
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- Credit: Tesla
It is a huge accomplishment for Tesla to get the Model Y L to the U.S., and after reporting strong deliveries today, it will be interesting to see how this car impacts future quarterly delivery reports.
Deliveries for the Model Y L “Launch Series” are slated for September or October of this year.
Tesla just told us twice that the Model Y L is coming to the U.S., and two social media posts definitely just tipped the company’s hand, as if they wanted it to be any other way.
The two social media posts basically confirm that the slightly longer version of the Model Y will be heading to the United States soon, and many have speculated that the company could launch the vehicle as soon as this weekend.
The first post was directly from Tesla, and it showed an incredibly long Dachshund, with words above that said, “Looking forward to the long weekend.”
Looking forward to the long weekend pic.twitter.com/URzH6zOUdn
— Tesla (@Tesla) July 1, 2026
Anyone who knows Tesla knows the company loves to troll its fans and have fun, and this is a perfect example of that. While not a direct acknowledgement, Tesla is very involved on social media, especially CEO Elon Musk’s platform X, and the company is well aware of what is being discussed within the community.
With recent sightings of Model Y L test mules in California, peeks of the vehicle at Giga Texas, and a large call for the car to come to the U.S., Tesla is simply stoking conversation with this.
However, the company also made another move that was recognized on social media. Tesla has a large gallery that includes photos of its products so media and others can use them. This gallery applies to the U.S. market specifically, unless otherwise specified.
Tesla uploaded a Model Y L to the Gallery last night:
This looks like a Model Y L https://t.co/TpnBwrLmH9
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 2, 2026
This seems to be another indication that the Model Y L is coming to the United States.
Musk said last year that the Model Y L could make its way to the United States late this year, but it was not something that was set in stone by Tesla. The company definitely needs to establish something in the SUV market that is larger than the Model Y, and the Model Y L might be the answer.
Even still, there are consumers out there who would love Tesla to develop something even larger, like a competitor to the Tahoe or Expedition. Tesla has not really given much of an indication that it will go in that direction.
Tesla is using the vehicles’ internal microphones to improve build quality, Vice President of Engineering Lars Moravy revealed recently.
It’s no secret that Tesla is always finding ways to make its manufacturing operations more efficient, accurate, and valuable. Constantly trying to make its cars better, the company has never placed any restrictions on what it will do to improve everything from panel gaps to paint.
As Teslas have been driving autonomously on the property of the Gigafactory Texas plant for a while now, Moravy revealed to Herbert Ong in a new interview that cars rolling off production lines now autonomously navigate themselves through a bumps, squeaks, and rattles (BSR) portion of the line. This helps to identify any loose or improperly installed internal parts.
The cabin’s microphones, which are used for a variety of things in ownership, simultaneously monitor any noises inside the vehicle while it rolls through the BSR portion of the production line. Moravy actually revealed that Tesla is trying to build “Full Self-Hearing,” an AI system that will detect minor imperfections so they can be corrected before delivery.
It’s no secret that build quality is something that Tesla struggled with as it scaled to a fully massive production operation that manufactures over 1.6 million vehicles per year. However, in recent years, especially, there have not been as many complaints. Tesla has truly improved upon its build quality and paint quality over the past several years, especially in the U.S.
Tesla’s ‘megacasts’ are key to massive build quality improvements
While those improvements have been evident, there are still some complaints; no automaker is perfect with this. But this step will now ensure that every single car that rolls off the production lines at Gigafactory Texas will be void of any creaks, squeaks, or squeals when it leaves the factory.
This measure is one of the most unique we’ve seen in terms of a strategy to avoid build quality issues, but it is not exclusive to Tesla.
Ford uses acoustic analysis AI to find abnormalities in seat motors, climate control units, and other components. Suppliers and OEMs will also use microphone arrays or particle velocity sensors in end-of-line stations.
The full interview with Lars Moravy is available below:
🚨 If you’re a Tesla investor, this is one interview you don’t want to skip. The full video posted below.
Jeff Lutz @thejefflutz and I sat down with Tesla VP of Engineering Lars Moravy, and it was packed with insights!
A few of the biggest takeaways:
• Cybercab is expected to… pic.twitter.com/fhYSr2dCqP
— Herbert Ong (@herbertong) July 1, 2026
Tesla brings Model Y L ‘Launch Series’ to the U.S. at $61,990
Tesla just told us twice that Model Y L is coming to the U.S.
