Why The “Twitter Files” Failed
Elon Musk is disappointed nobody cares about his “Twitter Files”. But the lack of press coverage is because there’s nothing there
Matt Taibbi’s apparent attempt to whip up sympathy for Russian propaganda and the accounts that spread it on Twitter has gone nowhere fast, and Elon Musk is none too happy about it. Probably none of us are even aware what 58 tweet thread of “Twitter Files” Taibbi and his fellow handpicked “journalists” are on now. Is it Twitter Files 8? Twitter Files 27? Twitter Files 9 3/4 (Hogwarts Legacy Edition)? You don’t know, and nor do I, because the Nothingburgers have consistently proved to contain precisely zero percent actual beef. There’s no press because, quite simply, there is no story. After a while, even critics like me don’t bother even reading the latest NPC type SCREEE of rage from various Twitter Files thread authors - that the USIC flagged up Russian propaganda on Twitter to Twitter executives, who sometimes removed it and sometimes didn’t.
Elon’s latest attack on the USIC is over the GEC, which he says ‘undermined democracy’ (Bruh. You can count the people who have even heard of this body on the fingers of one hand, or the thumbs of two). This State Department entity that combats foreign-driven misinformation got under the skin of Mr. Musk, and I must confess Elon drew me back to reading the latest Twitter Files under the promise of exposing it:
“The worst offender in US government censorship & media manipulation is an obscure agency called GEC,” tweeted Elon, linking to them and thereby giving the GEC its largest audience in years, possibly ever. “They are a threat to democracy,” he added, possibly having forgotten his prior tweet of mere seconds before which correctly called the GEC “obscure”. Not to be overly annoying, Elon, but if the agency is obscure it really isn’t much of a threat.
But then Musk got me. “That is the line they fed the media about me.” Wait, wut? Are you telling us the GEC said that you, Elon Musk, the richest man in all of America (at the time) were a “threat to democracy”? You literally partner with the US military, Elon. USG loves you. “Read this thread for more detail,” concluded God-Emperor Musk, linking to the latest Twitter Files, or, anyway, a Twitter Files by Matt Taibbi. At this point, I sighed internally, but dutifully read through all 40 of Taibbi’s thread tweets to see WHERE in this Twitter Files Taibbi reports the GEC calling Elon Musk “a threat to democracy”.
Gentle reader, it was nowhere to be found, much like, I suggest, “the beef” in any other set of Twitter Files. In fact, I would have been scandalized had a government agency called Elon Musk a ‘threat to democracy’. I may rag on Musk, but I like him, and he is ultimately just a domestic businessman. Poor taste in Twitter follows, sure, and minimal impulse control, but just a US entrepreneur. That would have been bad. But it never happened, or, to be precise, if it did happen, the quoted “Twitter Files” told me nothing about it.
To say that Elon is annoyed that “Twitter Files” have fallen flat is an understatement. He is, as they say on Twitter, big mad.
But he shouldn’t be. I confess to being utterly fascinated by Musk (more in another piece sometime). The “Twitter Files” simply are not what Elon thinks they are. They just do not show what he asserts. The media can’t cover a story that doesn’t exist.
Twitter Files Are Elon’s True Belief
Elon Musk’s motives are not like those of other people. He doesn’t need fame; his Twitter antics bring him negative money. He’s described himself as a “free speech absolutist” and not just the embedded tweet above, but dozens of small comments and replies from him show that he really believes that Twitter’s prior regime “suppressed free speech”. That’s what he thought he would ‘blow open’ with the Twitter Files. Here’s why they failed:
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