A new biography of Elon Musk released on Tuesday revealed that investigative journalist Bari Weiss was the first to alert the new owner of X, the social-media platform previously known as Twitter, that Jim Baker was overseeing the company’s legal department.
Baker, the former FBI general counsel under Director James Comey, played a pivotal role in Twitter’s decision in October 2020 to suppress the distribution of the Hunter Biden laptop story written by the New York Post.
After purchasing Twitter in October 2022, Musk made good on a promise to open the company’s books to select journalists, providing damning internal communications and files to Weiss and former Rolling Stone journalist Matt Taibbi.
Taibbi’s first “Twitter Files” installment revealed that the FBI and other government agencies were pressuring Twitter to suppress disfavored political content. When Weiss showed up to continue the reporting, she was shocked to learn that Baker was actively trying to prevent Musk’s transparency efforts.
“As Weiss pushed the legal department to process more searches for her, she got a call from the company’s deputy general counsel, who said his name was Jim,” biographer Walter Isaacson writes. Asked for his last name, he said: “Baker.”
“My jaw dropped,” Weiss told Isaacson, reflecting on the discovery. After her chat with Baker, Weiss texted Musk: “What the f***?” “You’re like asking the guy to do searches on himself? This makes no f***ing sense.”
Baker’s reputation with the FBI, and his involvement in the bureau’s probe into allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, raised serious ethical concerns. The revelation made Musk irate. “It’s like asking Al Capone to, like, look into his own taxes,” the Tesla founder told Isaacson.
Musk reportedly summoned Baker to a meeting shortly afterward, where the two clashed “over what privacy guarantees were mandated by a consent decree between Twitter and the Federal Trade Commission.” Following the conversation, Baker was “promptly fired,” Isaacson writes.
Baker was a central figure in the “Twitter Files” saga. In December 2022, Taibbi shared internal Twitter emails showing Baker defending the suppression of the Hunter Biden story.
“I support the conclusion that we need more facts to assess whether the materials were hacked,” Baker wrote at the time after company executives asked if Twitter could “truthfully claim” that banning the laptop story was “part of the policy.”
“At this stage, however, it’s reasonable for us to assume that they may have been and that caution is warranted,” Baker added.
Taibbi later published a disclaimer informing readers that the first Twitter Files revelations were vetted by Baker “without knowledge of new management.”
“The news that Baker was reviewing the ‘Twitter files’ surprised everyone involved, to say the least,” Taibbi wrote at the time. “New Twitter chief Elon Musk acted quickly to ‘exit’ Baker Tuesday.”