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Jack Dorsey slaps CNN’s Brian Stelter over his Tucker Carlson slam in series of rare and cryptic tweets

April 19, 2022 | | Print Article

While billionaire Elon Musk’s efforts to take over Twitter are being chronicled, another story has developed tangentially involving founder, former CEO and outgoing board member Jack Dorsey who called out CNN’s Brian Stelter and the media.

The Twitter founder made time to go after Stelter to point out the ongoing hypocrisy from the host of “Reliable Sources.” Earlier this month, Stelter had been called out at a conference on “Disinformation and the Erosion of Democracy” where he deflected claims that he was guilty of spreading bogus or misleading information and implied that was the business of Fox News.

So, when Stelter shared a Washington Post article where national correspondent Philip Bump criticized the stories that Fox News host Tucker Carlson chose to cover saying, “He’s selling doubt…” Dorsey called them out.

“And you all are selling hope?” Dorsey wrote in reply.

When Newsmax TV’s Alex Salvi suggested Dorsey was “defending” Carlson, the former Twitter CEO fired back.

Dorsey continued his exchanges on Twitter, responding to another set of comments after one user defended Stelter and Bump.

In one scathing post, Dorsey recounted how he had watched CNN crews “try to create conflict and film it” during the protests in Ferguson.

Dorsey also had critical takes on the media and Twitter in other comments he posted to users’ remarks.


In response to the Twitter board of directors rejecting Musk’s offer to buy out the company, Dorsey slammed the “dysfunction” and implied that he’s known about it and their contrary interests to shareholders and that he has “so much to say…but nothing that can be said.”

Over the weekend, Musk had partaken in some exchanges about the near none existent share ownership the board has after they announced they would be employing a “poison pill” to prevent a hostile takeover of the social media company. As reported, Musk said, “Objectively, their economic interests are simply not aligned with shareholders.”

He later went on to remark about the cumulative compensation of the board of nearly $3 million that he would bring down to $0 should he successfully privatize the company. As this was going on, Dorsey was actively engaging with users and perhaps hinting at his own weariness with the one-sided culture of Twitter and its regularly antagonistic nature under the current leadership.

“If I look into the history of Twitter board,” one user wrote, “it’s intriguing as I was a witness on its early beginnings, mired in plots and coups, and particularly amongst Twitter’s founding members. I wish if it could be made into a Hollywood thriller one day.”

Dorsey replied, “it’s consistently been the dysfunction of the company.” When asked by another if he was allowed to say this, Dorsey simply answered, “no.”

This exchange had been prompted in part by a Microsoft employee who shared a quote from venture capitalist Fred Destin who said, “What I do know for sure is that this old Silicon Valley proverb is grounded in age-old-wisdom that still applies today: Good boards don’t create good companies, but a bad board will kill a company every time.”

“Big facts,” Dorsey offered before pointing to the “dysfunction of the company.” With the former CEO leaving the company in May at the end of his term, his departure from the board with roughly 2.3 percent ownership leaves the remaining members with slightly more than 0.1 percent combined.

The former CEO seemingly siding with Musk, with whom Fox Business reported he has long held a friendly relationship, adds weight to replies to Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff post about an article where he discussed social responsibility over profit.

“Capitalism as we have known it is dead & the obsession that we have with maximizing profits for shareholders alone has led to incredible inequality & a planetary emergency. When we swerve all stakeholders, business is the greatest platform for change,” Benioff wrote.

Dorsey asked, “you bought this magazine too?” which led another user to point out the differences between shareholder capitalism, as Musk signaled was what the Twitter board had failed to uphold when they took actions against the fiduciary interests of their shareholders and stakeholder capitalism which seems to be what Twitter is currently promoting.

This seemingly outspoken streak from Dorsey was capped off by one reflection when asked by CNBC’s Scott Wapner why the former CEO hadn’t done anything while he was at the helm. According to his answer, he may have been legally incapable.

“so much to say…but nothing that can be said,” was all he had to offer.

Kevin Haggerty
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