No directive: FBI agents, tech executives deny government ordered Twitter to suppress Hunter Biden story

Internal Twitter communications released by the company’s new owner and CEO, Elon Musk, are fueling intense scrutiny of the FBI’s efforts alongside social media companies to thwart foreign disinformation in the run-up to the 2020 election.

At the heart of the controversy is Twitter’s decision in October 2020 to block users from sharing a New York Post story containing material from a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden. Conservative critics have accused Twitter of suppressing the story at the behest of the FBI, something they claim the released communications, dubbed the “Twitter Files,” demonstrate.

Musk himself has alleged the communications show government censorship, suggesting Twitter acted “under orders from the government” when it suppressed the Hunter Biden laptop story.

But so far, none of the released messages explicitly show the FBI telling Twitter to suppress the story. In fact, the opposite view emerges from sworn testimony by an FBI agent at the center of the controversy. And in interviews with CNN, half a dozen tech executives and senior staff, along with multiple federal officials familiar with the matter, all deny any such directive was given.

“We would never go to a company to say you need to squelch this story,” said one former FBI official who helped oversee the government’s cooperation with companies including Twitter, Google and Facebook.

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