(NewsNation) — Elon Musk has fired Twitter deputy general counsel Jim Baker, the tech billionaire announced on social media Tuesday.
Twitter’s new owner claimed he let Baker go because of his “possible role in suppressing information important to public dialogue.”
“Today he left Twitter,” Musk wrote in a tweet in response to journalist Matt Taibbi.
Matt posted a thread on Twitter over the weekend alleging that Twitter suppressed a NY Post story about the president’s son Hunter Biden and his laptop. The threat also revealed alleged communication between Twitter executives and the Trump and Biden campaigns during the 2020 presidential election. Both sides, Taibbi wrote, often reached out to Twitter to block stories or tweets they thought were inaccurate or disinformation. , although he maintains that the content moderation system was biased in favor of liberal-leaning requests.
Taibbi was given access to internal documents related to alleged Twitter communication with politicians to redact information, Axios reported. The journalist has said that he had to accept “certain conditions” to obtain the documents, but he did not say exactly what they were.
Baker, Taibi claimed
examined the information provided to Taibbi for the “Twitter Files” without the knowledge of Twitter’s “new address” and delayed the delivery of the documents.
When asked about this, Musk said Baker’s explanation was “… unconvincing.”
The ousted lawyer once worked as general counsel for the FBI and was part of the team investigating Donald Trump’s campaign and his possible ties to Russia. For that reason, many conservative media figures and a handful of Republicans in Congress concluded that the FBI had a more direct influence on Twitter’s original decision to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story.
However, there has been no concrete evidence to prove that this is the case.
Republican Rep. James Comer, (R-Kentucky), who is likely to be the next chairman of the House Oversight Committee, sent a letter to Baker Tuesday night in response to his firing and Musk’s allegations.
To “assess Big Tech’s control of freedom of expression and information,” Comer asked Baker to testify before the Oversight Committee.
So far, Baker has not responded to his firing or to the invitation from Congress.
There have been a myriad of layoffs and resignations at Twitter since Musk completed his $44 billion purchase of Twitter on October 27. However, Musk said last month that he was done cutting back and is looking for people for engineering or sales positions.