Elon Musk Blasts Substack In Heated Feud Over Platform's Rival Product To Twitter: 'Obviously Untrusted'

A war between Substack and Twitter is brewing.

On Wednesday, subscription-based blogging website Substack announced that it had built a social media platform — Substack Notes — that would compete with Twitter. In response, the Elon Musk-led platform stopped allowing Substack newsletter links on its platform and Substack writers from sharing tweets on their newsletters, as reported by Mashable. 

Twitter's move has since drawn strong reactions from Substack founders Chris Best, Hamish McKenzie and Jairaj Sethi, who told The New York Times that the situation was disappointing. 

"Writers deserve the freedom to share links to Substack or anywhere else," they told the publication in a statement. "This abrupt change is a reminder of why writers deserve a model that puts them in charge, rewards great work with money, and protects the free press and free speech."

Other Substack users also voiced their frustrations.  

"This is a huge inconvenience," Hunter Harris, a writer who distributes her newsletter, Hung Up, on Substack, told the Times. "It's incredibly petty."

"Any Twitter alternative would be great," she added. "I want another place just like Twitter; that's not Twitter."

On Friday, Substack's blogger Matt Taibbi, who had been a vocal supporter of Musk and had contributed to the "Twitter Files" (a name for the internal communications that Musk had given Taibbi and other writers permission to release), similarly criticized the social media giant, tweeting that he would use Substack's Notes rather than Twitter to share his work. 

Following Twitter's decision to "block" Substack on its platform, Taibbi went on Twitter and said he asked "what was going on" and was told to post articles on Twitter instead.

Of all things: I learned earlier today that Substack links were being blocked on this platform.

When I asked why, I was told it’s a dispute over the new Substack Notes platform…

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) April 7, 2023

In response to Taibbi, Musk took to Twitter that same day and asserted that Substack links were never blocked on Twitter. Furthermore, the billionaire claimed that Taibbi had worked — or continues to work — at Substack. 

1. Substack links were never blocked. Matt’s statement is false.

2. Substack was trying to download a massive portion of the Twitter database to bootstrap their Twitter clone, so their IP address is obviously untrusted.

3. Turns out Matt is/was an employee of Substack.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 8, 2023

In a scathing reply to Musk on Notes, Best refuted the Twitter CEO's claim that Taibbi is a Substack employee and wrote, "Substack links have been severely throttled on Twitter. Anyone using the product can see this."

"We have used the Twitter API, for years, to help writers. We believe we're in compliance with the terms, but if they have any specific concerns we would love to know about them! We'd be happy to address any issues," Best added. 

Like Twitter, Notes allows users to post updates allowing others to like, share and comment on content. 

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Photo: Steve Jurvetson via flickr