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Twitter Files part 14 sheds light on “Russian bots” and #ReleaseTheMemo

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The Twitter Files part 14, written by independent journalist, Matt Taibbi, shed light on a false narrative of Russian bots and the hashtag #ReleaseTheMemo. Taibbi, who was given access to the internal documents at Twitter by Elon Musk, released a new installment on Thursday.

It began in 2018 when Senators Dianne Feinstein and Adam Schiff wrote the platform a letter regarding trending hashtags and Russian disinformation campaigns. Twitter pointed out that both the politicians and the media didn’t only lack the evidence but had evidence the accounts were not Russian. However, the platform was “roundly ignored.”

Backtracking to a week before Twitter received the letter, Republican Devin Nunes submitted a classified memo to the House Intel Committee that detailed the abuses by the FBI in obtaining Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) surveillance authority against those connected to former President Trump. Included was the role played by the Steele Dossier.

Credit: Matt Taibbi

In December 2019, a report by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz verified Nunes’ assertions virtually.

“We also found that the FBI’s interviews of Steele, his Primary Sub-Source, a second sub-source, and other investigative activity revealed potentially serious problems with Steele’s descriptions of information in his reports,” the report read. “Among other things, regarding the allegations attributed to Person 1, the Primary Sub-source’s account of these communications, if true, was not consistent with and, in fact, contradicted the allegations of a “well-developed conspiracy” in Reports 95 and 102 attributed to Person 1.”

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The report also pointed out that the FBI filed three renewal applications with the FISC in 2017, repeating the seven “significant errors contained in the first FISA application.” Yet, the report found another ten errors in the three renewal applications. Taibbi noted that despite that, the national media denounced Nunes’ report in January and February 2018 in “oddly identical language, calling it a ‘joke.’

Senators Feinstein and Schiff also wrote an open letter claiming that the hashtag “gained the immediate attention and assistance of social media accounts linked to Russian influence operations.

The senators claimed that Nunes’ memo “distorts” classified information. “But note they didn’t call it incorrect,” Taibbi wrote.

Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal also wrote a letter. “We find it reprehensible that Russian agents have so eagerly manipulated innocent Americans citizens and undermined our democratic processes through our elections and public policy debates.”

The letter asked Twitter to notify users who interacted with tweets created by the accounts tracked by the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD). The senators and members of the media pointed to the Hamilton 68 dashboard created by Clint Watts, a former FBI counterintelligence official, created The letter asked Twitter to notify users who interacted with tweets created by the accounts tracked by the Alliance for Securing Democracy.”

The Hamilton 68 dashboard was described as a project with the Alliance for Securing Democracy at the German Marshal Fund and tracked around 600 accounts that it claimed were tied to Russian-sponsored influence and disinformation campaigns. Bret Schafer, an analyst who helped run the project, spoke about the #ReleaseTheMemo hashtag.

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“I’ve never seen any single hashtag that has had this amount of activity behind it,” he said. Taibbi noted that the dashboard “was vague in how it reached its conclusions.”

Twitter executives didn’t quite trust the dashboard and the key complaints were that Hamilton 68 seemed to be the only source of information and no one was checking with Twitter. Global Policy Communications Chief Emily Horne encouraged skepticism of the dashboard’s take. In the screenshots below, Horne pointed out that it was a comms play for ASD.

“They’ve made a very strong media push in the last week, piggybacking on Clint’s testimony.”

Off the record, she said, “I encourage you to be skeptical of Hamilton 68’s take on this, which, as best as I can tell, is the only source for these stories. 1) Hamilton 68 does not release the accounts that make up their dashboard, so no one can verify the accounts they include are, in fact, Russian automated accounts, and 2) it is extraordinarily difficult for outside researchers, who do not have access to our full API and internal account signals, to say with any degree of certainty that an account they believe is behaving suspiciously is 1) automated and 2) Russian.”

“If you speak with them, I encourage you to press them on how they can be sure of both of these claims when they do not have access to internal signals and data.”

Twitter’s former head of safety, Yoel Roth, wasn’t able to find any Russian connection to the hashtag and noted that after reviewing accounts that posted the first 50 tweets with the hashtag, none showed any signs or affiliation to Russia. Instead, Twitter found that the engagement was “overwhelmingly organing and driven by strong VIT engagement). VIT is an acronym for very important Tweeters, and these included Wikileaks, Donald Trump Jr., and Congressman Steve King.

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When Twitter brought this up to a Blumenthal staffer, the staffer tried to wave them off “because we don’t believe these are bots.”

Another Twitter executive pointed out that if Blumenthal would lay off on this, “it seems like there are other wins we could offer him.” However, the senator published his letter, which led to the platform’s executives being frustrated over what they viewed as a circular process.

“Twitter spent a lot of resources to respond to the initial request, and the reward from Blumental shouldn’t be round after round of requests for user notice. It also doesn’t do anything to fix the problem. That distracts our team from the real iq fight.”

Twitter executives later realized that they were”feeding congressional trolls” and compared the requests to a popular children’s book, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.

Although Twitter believed that there were no Russians in the story, it stopped challenging Russia’s claims on the record. Outside counsel from firms advised Twitter to use language such as “With respect to particular hashtags, we take seriously any activity that may represent an abuse of our platform.”

This resulted in reports from several mainstream media outlets pushing the “Russian bots” story without any evidence. Taibbi noted that several media outlets that played up the “Russian bots” story declined to comment. So did the staff for Senators Feinstein, Schiff, and Blumenthal. Nunes shared a comment.

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“Schiff and the Democrats falsely claimed Russians were behind the Release the Memo hashtag, all my investigative work… By spreading the Russia collusion hoax, they instigated one of the greatest outbreaks of mass delusion in U.S. history.”

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.

Johnna Crider is a Baton Rouge writer covering Tesla, Elon Musk, EVs, and clean energy & supports Tesla's mission. Johnna also interviewed Elon Musk and you can listen here

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Investor's Corner

Tesla opens the Q&A for its biggest earnings call yet

Tesla opens its Q3 earnings Q&A, and Cybercab, Robotaxi, Optimus and regulators loom over October 21.

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Tesla has opened its shareholder question portal for the Q3 2026 earnings call, with the Say Q&A page already listing questions. Investors have until 4:00 p.m. EDT on October 20 to submit and vote on what management should answer.

The call is set for Wednesday, October 21. Tesla will post results after the market closes, with a live webcast at 4:30 p.m. CT, or 5:30 p.m. ET, through its investor relations site.

Say ranks questions by the number of shares behind the votes, which gives institutional holders extra weight over the retail crowd.

Ahead of Q2, retail investors asked why Robotaxi growth had stalled, when Cybercab would start customer rides, and where the Optimus Gen 3 ramp stood, while an institutional holder asked how Tesla and SpaceX would split Terafab duties. Cybercab has since answered one of those. Tesla said last week it has 300 plus Cybercabs serving Austin, up eightfold in 30 days, with Dallas named as the next city. The questions now are likely to move from when to how fast.

There is also a regulatory question hanging over the call. NHTSA has demanded sworn answers on how the pedal free Cybercab was certified against federal safety standards, with responses due October 30, nine days after the call. Whether an analyst raises it live is unknown, but it is the kind of exposure that tends to find its way into a Q&A.

The numbers will not be the main draw. Tesla already reported 486,532 deliveries and 13.7 GWh of storage for the quarter. Consensus sits around 43 to 45 cents per share on roughly $27.8 billion in revenue, according to Zacks, after a Q2 report that missed on EPS. Goldman Sachs, which holds a Neutral rating and a $360 target, argues the outlook for Robotaxi, FSD and Optimus will matter more to the stock than the quarter itself.

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The call also lands six days after the rescheduled Roadster event, which Tesla will stream on X on Thursday, October 15, at 7:55 p.m. CT. If the Roadster shows up with a production date or a SpaceX thruster package, expect it to climb the voting list before the deadline.

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Ukraine says Starlink is cutting out its military drones as Poland calls out Elon Musk

Ukrainian officials allege SpaceX limited military Starlink speeds, disrupting drone missions; SpaceX has not commented.

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Credit: Mykhailo Fedorov/Twitter

Ukrainian officials are accusing SpaceX of placing a speed limit on the military version of Starlink that their forces use to fly drones, but SpaceX has not confirmed that any change was made. Presidential adviser Serhiy Beskrestnov said in a Telegram post on Wednesday that Starshield terminals have begun losing service when they move faster than about 100 miles per hour, according to a Reuters report. “Our defense forces did not receive a warning about this limitation, and this led to the disruption of several missions,” he wrote.

Ukraine’s 7th Rapid Reaction Corps told Reuters that connections dropped for 10 to 20 seconds at just 68 to 75 mph, which made the drones harder to control. Volunteer Serhiy Sternenko, citing military reports, said the dropouts are now starting at 37 to 43 mph. These accounts come from Ukrainian officials and military sources and have not been independently verified. Regular civilian terminals were reportedly not affected, according to EUalive.


SpaceX has not publicly commented or explained what, if anything, changed. Beskrestnov and other Ukrainian officials believe the issue is intentional and point to the timing. Washington has been pressing Kyiv to stop long range strikes on Russian oil refineries after President Trump called for an “energy ceasefire,” and Musk posted on Saturday that “Zelensky has gone too far.” EUalive noted that neither Ukrainian nor Polish officials have presented evidence that the limit was ordered by Washington or by SpaceX, so the link to politics remains an allegation. Other explanations, such as a technical or policy change affecting fast moving terminals, have not been ruled out.

Poland’s foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, responded on X by quote tweeting a Kyiv Independent report and writing: “Hey, @elonmusk, big man, are you playing politics with your products again? As your European customers, we are watching you.” Poland is the largest funder of Ukraine’s Starlink service, having supplied more than 29,000 terminals and covering operating costs Sikorski has put at roughly $50 million a year. The wording echoes their 2025 clash, when Musk told Sikorski to “be quiet, small man.” At the time of writing, neither Musk nor SpaceX had responded to the claims.

The dispute sits on top of a long history. Musk confirmed in February 2022 that Starlink was active in Ukraine after a request from a Ukrainian minister. That October, SpaceX asked the Pentagon to share the bill and Musk said the cost was approaching $20 million a month, before he reversed course and said SpaceX would keep paying. In December 2024 the Pentagon moved some of those terminals onto the Starshield service, the government version now at the center of the complaints.

SpaceX has also changed how its network treats certain terminals in Ukraine before, and that time it was with Kyiv’s cooperation. In February, Ukrainian officials confirmed that terminals believed to be used by Russian troops were disabled after coordination with SpaceX, a step that Ukrainian commanders later said hurt Russian assaults. Whether anything similar is behind the latest reports is unclear, which is why Kyiv is asking for answers.

Ukraine is already looking at backups. Defense tech company Stetman is developing its own satellite system, UASAT-NANO, and officials in Europe have discussed alternatives to Starlink since early 2025, though none match its scale yet.

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FAA kicks off review of SpaceX’s bid to fly Starship nearly every day

FAA is reviewing SpaceX’s plan for 456 Starship launches a year, up from 25 today.

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Rendering of Elon Musk overlooking a Starship fleet (Credit: Grok)

The FAA said Tuesday that it will prepare an environmental impact statement on SpaceX’s proposal to run as many as 456 Starship launches and 912 landings a year from Starbase, Texas. SpaceX is currently authorized for 25 launches and 50 landings annually, which makes the request roughly 18 times the existing ceiling. The notice of intent is set to publish in the Federal Register on Wednesday.

The plan comes in two phases. Phase 1 would allow up to 100 launches and 200 landings a year, on any day and at any hour. Phase 2, which the FAA says could arrive within several years, would raise the limit to the full 456 launches, still at any hour but only on weekdays. The agency noted that 912 landings is the upper limit for the Texas facility no matter where a given mission begins, and that Starship and Super Heavy could come down at the launch site or in the Gulf and open ocean.

A draft statement will be released for public comment at a later date, and the FAA has not said when. According to the Federal Registar, written comments are due November 30 on regulations.gov under docket FAA-2026-12808, with in person scoping meetings on November 17 in Brownsville and November 19 in Port Isabel, plus a virtual session on November 18. The review will weigh air quality, wildlife, coastal resources, water, noise, and aviation, and the FAA said any increase beyond this proposal would need its own separate review.

The numbers look large next to what Starbase has actually done. Starship has flown three times from Texas this year, including Flight 14 on September 28, the first orbital flight, which deployed 26 Starlink V3 satellites. Bloomberg reported that Starbase has never launched more than five times in a calendar year. The current cap of 25 comes from an FAA approval in May 2025. In February, the agency also approved up to 44 Starship launches a year from Launch Complex 39A in Florida, so Phase 1 in Texas alone would more than double that allowance.

Musk has said Starship could eventually fly more than once per hour within less than a decade, per Bloomberg. The nearer term target is Flight 15. Musk said on October 10 that it is hopefully four to six weeks away and will try to catch the ship with the tower, as Teslarati covered. That flight still runs under the existing 25 launch limit, and so would every Starbase launch for as long as the new review takes.

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As of mid morning Pacific time on Tuesday, SpaceX had not posted about the filing on its own account.

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