Elon Musk’s Twitter launches company-wide mole hunt

The resulting data dumps, dubbed the “Twitter Files”, served as a goodwill gesture to gain trust among conservative and anti-establishment voices and coax them back to the platform through a demonstration of transparency.

“Sunlight is the best disinfectant,” Musk said last month, after he had already open-sourced Twitter’s recommendation algorithm as further proof the company welcomed the public thoroughly scrutinizing it. 

Twitter employees have apparently taken his message too much to heart, however, as new CEO Linda Yaccarino now wants to crack down on internal leaks. Launching a company-wide mole hunt, employees have been encouraged to report to superiors anyone they have reason to believe may be passing on damaging information.

There is an “organized way for us to be transparent”, new Yaccarino hire Joe Benarroch told employees in an company-wide letter posted on Thursday. “We just have to first focus on keeping our business actions confidential.” 

Violations by these “insiders” can result in consequences that include everything from their immediate termination to criminal prosecution, he warned. 

“If you suspect any employee is not protecting Twitter’s confidential information, please report it by submitting a ticket,” Benarroch wrote in a letter to staff. “If you need guidance or want to schedule training for your team, please email insiderthreat@twitter.com.”

So far he appears to have had little success, as his comments were promptly leaked to tech blog Platformer. Its managing editor, Zoë Schiffer, has been a constant thorn in the side of Twitter, emerging as one of the foremost authorities to report on Musk’s ill-advised $44 billion investment.

Here is the full email for anyone who is wondering. I stand by my words. Great teams are built on TRUST. We’re building something special at Twitter. The individuals who are leaking internal information can’t be trusted and don’t deserve to be a part of it. https://t.co/fYZmF7YVj5 pic.twitter.com/vnsZFVh2nE

— Joe Benarroch (@benarroch_joe) June 22, 2023

Earlier this month, she and publication founder Casey Newton reported Twitter refused to pay its Google Cloud bills in the latest example of Musk not paying suppliers, partners and even employees—potentially giving them further motivation to leak internal news to the press. 

While Yaccarino reportedly has since patched up relations with Google and is honoring that particular contract, a Colorado judge ruled a delinquent Twitter can be evicted from its Boulder offices after failing to pay rent for three months. 

Maintaining security of sensitive information is a paramount task for virtually all businesses, since there are consequences beyond simply gifting valuable insight to one’s competitors.

For example one of Musk’s other companies, Tesla, risks a fine as high as $3.3 billion after more than 100 gigabytes of documents—including personnel data on both customers as well as past and present employees—were passed onto German business daily Handelsblatt.

Yet Musk has pitched his acquisition not as a traditional business endeavor but as a civic duty to humanity. Under his leadership, he claims Twitter will differentiate itself from mainstream competitors he branded “media puppet-masters” by elevating the platform to the world’s most trusted and transparent medium.

This altruistic marketing campaign partially backfired in May when Twitter admitted it censored content deemed by Turkish government to be harmful to the re-election chances of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who faced his first major political challenge in his 20 years ruling over the country (Musk claimed he had no other choice but to comply, an assertion disputed by some critics.)   

Upon hearing of Yaccarino’s hire last month, the tycoon’s anti-establishment fans raised concerns that the spirit of accountability they believe Musk introduced could further be stifled by the former ad sales exec in her pursuit of more revenue.

Benarroch, who joined Twitter this month after overseeing communication strategy for the NBCUniversal division led by Yaccarino, did not respond immediately to a Fortune request for comment.

With Platformer letting the cat out of the bag, however, he chose to post the company-wide letter in full on the social media site.

“We’re building something special at Twitter,” he wrote as a preface to the letter. “The individuals who are leaking internal information can’t be trusted and don’t deserve to be a part of it.”