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.
-
Tesla has continued to flex the strength, rigidity, and robustness of its all-electric pickup, the Cybertruck. In fact, since 2019, Cybertruck’s ability to avoid dents, dings, and even gunfire has been one of the main selling points Tesla has used to attract buyers who are looking for a vehicle that can handle the most intense challenges.
But that does not mean Tesla is not still actively trying to make it even better.
In a new hardware update, Tesla has decided to change the material of the Cybertruck’s underbody panels from aluminum to carbon fiber, a move that aims to not only increase pricing efficiency but also improve strength.
RELATED:
Cybertruck Lead Engineer Wes Morrill confirmed the change was made to the Cybertruck recently after it was spotted by Coleton Guerin of Out of Spec. This particular trim level was a Cyberbeast, but it is being applied to all trims to keep supply chain efficiency high and have less variance across trim levels.
Morrill said that Tesla tested different materials for the underbody panel protection, and carbon fiber performed better than aluminum, which is what the company was using since its first deliveries in 2023.
-
Additionally, there are some efficiency improvements because Tesla can better form the areas around the bolts to keep underbody airflow cleaner than previously.
good eye – it’s a new material. Testing showed it to be more durable than the aluminum while being lower weight and cost. Also slight efficiency improvement since we can better form the areas around the bolts to keep the underbody airflow cleaner than what stamped aluminum allows
— Wes (@wmorrill3) July 30, 2026
Carbon fiber is traditionally lighter and more durable than aluminum, which is why it is such a popular material among luxury automakers, and EV makers will utilize some of the materials around battery packs to save weight.
This is the first instance of Tesla utilizing carbon fiber on the Cybertruck’s exterior to help with overall performance and strength. As previously mentioned, Tesla used aluminum to protect the underside of the body, but it is pretty typical for the company to continue making engineering changes that will improve the car in the future.
Tesla released Full Self-Driving version 14.3.7 yesterday, and after about 90 miles of testing today, it is evident there are some definite fixes from version 14.3.6, which I wrote about last week and called a regression.
Within the first 40 minutes of my drive on v14.3.7, it saved me from getting into an accident with an unaware Dodge Charger driver, and some of the things Tesla seemed to miss in v14.3.6 were definitely improved. All in all, the release so far has some really great performance, and I’m looking forward to testing it further.
For now, here’s everything I noticed with v14.3.7:
Overall Improvement
Just generally speaking from a ride perspective, this was a really great experience. A lot of the hesitancy I experienced on v14.3.6 was gone. There were no instances of brake-stabbing, wheel-jerking, or any uncertain or unconfident movements. It was void of anything that I felt made it timid with v14.3.6.
The one thing I do hope to see down the road is a smaller need to adjust Speed Profiles so often. Because Tesla calls FSD “Supervised,” I’m okay with needing to hit the scroll wheel a few times a drive.
However, I hope that things can be incrementally improved upon with speed. Sometimes it’s too fast; other times it’s too slow. It’s a difficult thing to hone in and refine, but I hope it eventually gets there.
I didn’t notice any significant left lane camping or any behaviors that were completely out of line. I am hopeful that this opinion does not change, but after driving a few days with this version and putting it in a variety of different situations, you are exposed to more behaviors, some of which are not necessarily what I’d prefer.
-
The big things to notice, at least in my experience thus far, are that the major issues with previous versions — meaning the braking stabbing and wheel jerking — simply weren’t there. That’s enough to already consider this progress compared to .6.
Manual Signal Override is More Responsive
On .6, I had quite a few issues with FSD ignoring my manually input turn signals. If Tesla wants to call it “Supervised,” then the car should not ignore any input the driver gives. If I touch the accelerator on FSD, the car speeds up.
🚨 Tesla FSD v14.3.7 obeying manual turn signals https://t.co/6eqToXpQfC pic.twitter.com/vHBlFQ4PDV
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) August 2, 2026
The car did a great job of obeying my turn signals when I wanted it to change lanes, which is welcome.
Parking Lot Performance
Before .6, I traditionally took over in nearly every parking lot my car entered, because I knew it would not park somewhere that I wanted, and usually, it was just a tad too timid in this setting.
The one bright spot of .6 was how well it handled parking lots. This continued with v14.3.7:
-
I’m always really happy to see progress at all, but once parking preferences come to FSD, as long as this performance is still around, that could potentially be the biggest improvement I’ve seen in FSD in the year I’ve been using it personally on a daily basis.
Full Self-Driving Averts Disaster
A Dodge Charger changed into my lane without checking if I was there, running me off the road. FSD made the initial avoidance maneuver; I grabbed the wheel out of instinct, looked in my side mirror to ensure I had nobody following closely behind, hit the brake, and straightened the car back up to avoid a curb:
🚨 Guys this is why you all NEED to stay vigilant behind the wheel, even on Tesla Full Self-Driving
Human drivers are UNHINGED and have no idea what they’re doing anymore. This was a kid obviously younger than 20 years old with zero awareness.
First drive with v14.3.7 https://t.co/1vTbCMpCn8 pic.twitter.com/lz7KKEF6bj
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) August 2, 2026
-
There have been quite a few responses to this video stating that I should never have grabbed the wheel. To be honest, I really wish I had not done so, because I do believe FSD would have avoided any sort of collision with anything, including the car or the curb.
However, this was the first time I had ever been this close to being hit while using FSD. My natural reaction was to take over. I think if I had had something like this happen before, my reaction might have been different.
Hitting the brake avoided hitting the curb, while FSD swerved to avoid the car. My concern after the car was clear of my front end was the curb. All in all, I’m really happy with how things turned out, and I think anyone could be a critic of how I handled it. I only had a split second to really make a decision, and thankfully, any damage was avoided.
It is clear FSD managed to avoid the car coming down before I was able to. I truly credit FSD for avoiding the collision.
What Needs to Improve
Better Recognition of Potholes, Uneven Roads, Sharp Changes in Roadway/Bumps
On Friday, my Fianceè and I were in the car, and FSD was driving us. We crossed over a roadway that has a traffic light, and FSD was traveling at 40 MPH on Standard, 5 MPH over the speed limit. Everything was more than reasonable.
However, the road we were crossing at the light has a major bump both as you start and finish crossing it. Without a speed reduction, your car can go airborne. The Tesla did just this on Friday on v14.3.6; it was an uncomfortable bounce that pretty much confirmed I would not ever let FSD go over again unless we were sitting at that intersection when there is a red light.
I even tried scrolling down into Sloth quickly, but I ended up just taking over:
-
This is that big bounce that I mentioned in the quoted post.
It’s just a tad too drastic to take at the speed FSD wants to go over it. You can see me quickly swipe down into Sloth, but I intervened. https://t.co/K20PK9ysBg pic.twitter.com/81Oc82ZJcZ
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) August 2, 2026
A few people have said it remains related to the vision-based approach and its difficulty comprehending 3D. This is a huge issue because this can cause serious damage at certain speeds.
Navigation
Nothing new here. I still turn off “Online Routing” quite frequently to get the car to take logical routes from time to time.
Auto Wipers
Auto Wipers are just plain bad. I really hope Tesla just uses a rain sensor. I thought they had improved at one point, but I still get dry wipes, Speed 4 on a drizzle, and Speed 2 on a steady rain. In reality, these should be switched.
You can watch our full review of Tesla Full Self-Driving v14.3.7 below:
-
🚨 Tesla Full Self-Driving v14.3.7 saved me from an accident! FULL REVIEW: https://t.co/1vTbCMpCn8 pic.twitter.com/9mHmKVoMVA
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) August 2, 2026
SpaceX will report second quarter results after the market closes on Tuesday, August 4, marking the first time the company has opened its books to the public since its record IPO in June. Management will host a live audio only webcast at 4:30 p.m. ET, streamed on X, with no dial in option.
The debut carries more weight than a typical first quarter as a public company. Two trading days after the release, on August 6, the first tranche of SpaceX’s lockup expires, freeing roughly 911.5 million insider and employee shares, worth well over $100 billion at current prices and the largest such release in Wall Street history. A second, larger tranche tied to the stock trading 30 percent above its $135 IPO price never triggered, since shares have spent most of July trading below that price.
Wall Street’s models point to revenue near $6.9 billion for the quarter, up sharply from the $4.69 billion SpaceX reported in the first quarter, with a narrower per share loss than the $1.27 posted three months earlier, according to estimates compiled by Motley Fool. Those numbers will be the first look at how SpaceX’s three segments, Starlink, launch and AI, are performing independently.
SpaceX scores another massive Pentagon deal to support military satellites
Investors heading into the call have a specific list of questions. How many net new Starlink subscribers did SpaceX add after ending March with 10.3 million, and is average revenue per user holding up as the service expands into lower income markets. How much of the AI segment’s revenue reflects contract signings with Anthropic, Google and Reflection AI this year, deals that combined could annualize to nearly $28 billion if fully ramped. Whether capital expenditures, which nearly doubled in the AI segment alone between 2024 and 2025, are still accelerating or starting to plateau. And whether management offers any forward guidance at all, something SpaceX has never done publicly.
The report will also land days after Elon Musk publicly denied a Wall Street Journal report describing internal planning to separate Tesla’s China business ahead of a potential Tesla-SpaceX merger. Whether Musk or SpaceX executives address that speculation on the call, even indirectly, maybe something investors will be listening for on Tuesday.
As Teslarati reported after Musk’s own warning to short sellers last week, the CEO has made clear he expects skeptics to be proven wrong over time. Tuesday will be the first chance for the numbers themselves to make that case.
-
Tesla quietly made the Cybertruck even stronger
Tesla Full Self-Driving v14.3.7 early review: FSD saved me from an accident
