Elon Musk Reveals What REALLY Happened to the Hunter Biden Laptop Story

It's worse than we thought.

This is a long one that will likely not make it all the way into your inbox so you may have to click through to the Substack article itself. To those who cannot access Twitter, I will be doing a full analysis of this over the weekend. It’s pretty self-explanatory and very damning, but the thread is so long and has so many links and images, it would be challenging for me to transcribe for the handful who are blocked on Twitter. If need-be, view the thread in “incognito mode” on your browser. Here’s the article…

The debacle known as the 2020 election was at least partially derailed by media suppression and Big Tech censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop story in October that year. NY Post had published an article exposing much of what they found on the laptop that belonged to then-candidate Joe Biden's son. But it was three weeks before the election and the powers-that-be pounced.

Now, new Twitter owner Elon Musk is revealing what REALLY happened. He teased his reveal on Twitter, of course:

Elon Musk @elonmusk

What really happened with the Hunter Biden story suppression by Twitter will be published on Twitter at 5pm ET!

Elon Musk @elonmusk

Will include live Q&A

But then... nothing. 5pm came and went. After just over 20-minutes of silence, he announced they were double-checking some facts.

JD Rucker @JDRucker

@elonmusk Is "double-checking some facts" code for "HELP, HILLARY IS IN THE BUILDING!"?

He ended up going well beyond 40-minutes, but eventually he delivered. Here's the drop...

Elon Musk @elonmusk

Here we go!! 🍿🍿

Matt Taibbi @mtaibbi

1. Thread: THE TWITTER FILES

Matt Taibbi @mtaibbi

2. What you’re about to read is the first installment in a series, based upon thousands of internal documents obtained by sources at Twitter.

Matt Taibbi @mtaibbi

4. Twitter in its conception was a brilliant tool for enabling instant mass communication, making a true real-time global conversation possible for the first time.

Matt Taibbi @mtaibbi

6. As time progressed, however, the company was slowly forced to add those barriers. Some of the first tools for controlling speech were designed to combat the likes of spam and financial fraudsters.

Matt Taibbi @mtaibbi

8. By 2020, requests from connected actors to delete tweets were routine. One executive would write to another: “More to review from the Biden team.” The reply would come back: “Handled.”

Matt Taibbi @mtaibbi

10.Both parties had access to these tools. For instance, in 2020, requests from both the Trump White House and the Biden campaign were received and honored. However:

Matt Taibbi @mtaibbi

12. The resulting slant in content moderation decisions is visible in the documents you’re about to read. However, it’s also the assessment of multiple current and former high-level executives.

Matt Taibbi @mtaibbi

16. The Twitter Files, Part One: How and Why Twitter Blocked the Hunter Biden Laptop Story

Matt Taibbi @mtaibbi

18. Twitter took extraordinary steps to suppress the story, removing links and posting warnings that it may be “unsafe.” They even blocked its transmission via direct message, a tool hitherto reserved for extreme cases, e.g. child pornography.

Matt Taibbi @mtaibbi

20.This led public policy executive Caroline Strom to send out a polite WTF query. Several employees noted that there was tension between the comms/policy teams, who had little/less control over moderation, and the safety/trust teams:

Matt Taibbi @mtaibbi

22. Although several sources recalled hearing about a “general” warning from federal law enforcement that summer about possible foreign hacks, there’s no evidence - that I've seen - of any government involvement in the laptop story. In fact, that might have been the problem...

Matt Taibbi @mtaibbi

24. “They just freelanced it,” is how one former employee characterized the decision. “Hacking was the excuse, but within a few hours, pretty much everyone realized that wasn’t going to hold. But no one had the guts to reverse it.”

Matt Taibbi @mtaibbi

26. By this point “everyone knew this was fucked,” said one former employee, but the response was essentially to err on the side of… continuing to err.

Matt Taibbi @mtaibbi

28. To which former Deputy General Counsel Jim Baker again seems to advise staying the non-course, because “caution is warranted”:

Matt Taibbi @mtaibbi

30. In one humorous exchange on day 1, Democratic congressman Ro Khanna reaches out to Gadde to gently suggest she hop on the phone to talk about the “backlash re speech.” Khanna was the only Democratic official I could find in the files who expressed concern.

Matt Taibbi @mtaibbi

32.Khanna tries to reroute the conversation to the First Amendment, mention of which is generally hard to find in the files:

Matt Taibbi @mtaibbi

34.NetChoice lets Twitter know a “blood bath” awaits in upcoming Hill hearings, with members saying it's a "tipping point," complaining tech has “grown so big that they can’t even regulate themselves, so government may need to intervene.”

Matt Taibbi @mtaibbi

36.Twitter files continued: "THE FIRST AMENDMENT ISN’T ABSOLUTE” Szabo’s letter contains chilling passages relaying Democratic lawmakers’ attitudes. They want “more” moderation, and as for the Bill of Rights, it's "not absolute"

Matt Taibbi @mtaibbi

While reviewing Gadde's emails, I saw a familiar name - my own. Dorsey sent her a copy of my Substack article blasting the incident

Matt Taibbi @mtaibbi

The problem with the "hacked materials" ruling, several sources said, was that this normally required an official/law enforcement finding of a hack. But such a finding never appears throughout what one executive describes as a "whirlwind" 24-hour, company-wide mess.

Matt Taibbi @mtaibbi

Good night, everyone. Thanks to all those who picked up the phone in the last few days.

Musk's reign at Twitter has been a mixed bag as both conservatives and leftists equally dismayed by his actions, depending on the hour. This move goes a long way to making conservatives trust him more, if not like him for it.

Now the real question for both Elon Musk, Big Tech, and the corporate media industrial complex is what is going to be done to prevent this from happening in the future?