A day after journalist Matt Taibbi—whom the billionaire CEO Elon Musk selected, to great fanfare, to publicize the so-called Twitter Files to the world—suddenly and very publicly abandoned Twitter, Musk slammed his former golden boy as a liar, and an “employee” of Substack, whose working operations he went on to criticize.
Next, the co-founder and CEO of Substack, Chris Best, took to Substack Notes to claim “none” of what Musk had contended was true, including his claim that Taibbi was a Substack employee.
On Friday, Musk—who was reportedly upset about a new feature Substack is introducing which could be seen as a Twitter competitor—pushed out a code tweak that prevented users from engaging with anything having to do with Substack.
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That meant people were blocked from liking, pinning, retweeting, or replying to tweets containing Substack links. But Twitter has long served as a crucial tool for Substackers, Taibbi included, to get their work seen. On Saturday, Best called Musk’s move “very frustrating.”
Since Musk took control of Twitter last year in a $44 billion deal, users have complained about numerous changes the mercurial new leader has introduced. The world’s second-richest man has, among other things, degraded the platform’s security features, began feeding tweets to users by people they don’t follow, and improperly labeled NPR’s account as “state media.”
Many have decried the moves as having been motivated by Musk’s ego, and others simply as flat-footed and unpopular attempts at making Twitter profitable.
After the Substack change was implemented, Taibbi, a former Rolling Stone “gonzo” journalist whose politics have recently shifted somewhat to the right, said not being able to share Substack links on Twitter would render the platform “unusable for me.”
In an email to subscribers, Taibbi wrote, “Earlier this afternoon, I learned Substack links were being blocked on Twitter. Since being able to share my articles is a primary reason I use Twitter, I was alarmed and asked what was going on. It turns out Twitter is upset about the new Substack Notes feature, which they see as a hostile rival. When I asked how I was supposed to market my work, I was given the option of posting my articles on Twitter instead of Substack.”
Taibbi told readers he would be staying at Substack, acknowledging that he would likely no longer be given access to the “Twitter Files” data (which has largely been a bust, when the details of supposed government and left-wing “censorship” haven’t been flagrantly misreported).
Soon after Taibbi made the surprise announcement, Musk—unsurprisingly—unfollowed him.
On Saturday morning, Musk continued to lash out publicly. In a Tweet posted at 5:49 a.m., he wrote:
1. Substack links were never blocked. Matt’s statement is false.
2. Substack was trying to download a massive portion of the Twitter database to bootstrap their Twitter clone, so their IP address is obviously untrusted.
3. Turns out Matt is/was an employee of Substack.
While Taibbi and other writers earn money from Substack subscriptions, following Musk’s claims, Substack CEO Best took to his company’s apparent “Twitter-killer,” which is still in beta, with a strongly worded point-by-point rebuttal.
“None of this is true,” Best began, noting that Twitter had indeed “severely throttled” Substack links. “Anyone using the product can see this.”
Substack has always been in compliance with Twitter’s API rules, Best continued. He asked anyone with any specific concerns to let him know, and that he would see to it that any issues were addressed.
“@Matt Taibbi is not and has never been an employee of Substack,” Best shot back at Musk’s third allegation. “He writes a Substack and gets paid directly by his readers. That writers making money seems to be such a strange concept is telling.”
Best concluded by writing, “This is very frustrating. It’s one thing to mess with Substack, but quite another to treat writers this way.
Twitter’s press team responded to The Daily Beast’s request for comment on Saturday with an auto-reply containing a poop emoji.
