New Twitter CEO Elon Musk on Tuesday posted a message on his social media platform claiming the United States government “paid Twitter millions of dollars to censor info from the public.”
Musk was referring to reporting from author Michael Shellenberger revealing that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was “paying Twitter millions of dollars” as part of an “organized effort by representatives of the intelligence community (IC)” aimed at senior executives at Twitter and at other news and media companies to “discredit leaked information” about the Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings.
In Tweet no. 46 in Shellenberger’s “TWITTER FILES: PART 7,” the author explains how Twitter was receiving millions of dollars from the FBI at the same time the bureau was actively pushing the social media platform to censor reporting about Hunter Biden.
“The FBI’s influence campaign may have been helped by the fact that it was paying Twitter millions of dollars for its staff time,” Shellenberger tweeted, before showing a screenshot of communications from Twitter lawyer Jim Baker’s “associate” revealing Twitter had received millions of dollars from the FBI.
“I am happy to report we have collected $3,415,323 since October 2019!” wrote the associate in early 2021.
