Matt Taibbi | |
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 Taibbi in 2023 | |
| Born | Matthew Colin Taibbi (1970-03-02)March 2, 1970 (age 55) |
| Occupation |
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| Alma mater | Bard College (BA) |
| Subjects |
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| Years active | 1991–present[1] |
| Notable works |
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| Spouse | Jeanne Taibbi[2] |
| Children | 3 |
| Relatives | Mike Taibbi (father) |
| Website | |
| racket | |
Matthew Colin Taibbi[3] (/taɪˈiːbi/; born March 2, 1970) is an American author, journalist and podcaster. A former contributing editor forRolling Stone, he is the author of several books and publisher ofRacket News (formerlyTK News). He has reported on finance, media, politics and sports.
Taibbi began as a freelance reporter working in Russia. He later worked as a sports journalist for the English-language newspaperThe Moscow Times. In 1997, Taibbi andMark Ames co-edited the tabloid newspaperThe eXile. In 2002, Taibbi returned to the United States and founded theBuffalo-based newspaperThe Beast. He left a year later to work as a columnist for theNew York Press.[4][5]
In 2004, Taibbi began covering politics forRolling Stone.[5] In 2008, Taibbi won aNational Magazine Award for three columns he wrote forRolling Stone.[6] Taibbi became known for his brazen style, having brandedGoldman Sachs a "vampire squid" in a 2009 article about the Wall Street firm's outsized role in the2008 financial crisis.[7][8] His work often has drawn comparisons to thegonzo journalism of writerHunter S. Thompson, who also covered politics forRolling Stone.[1][9][10][11][12] In 2019, he launched the podcastUseful Idiots, co-hosted byKatie Halper, before leaving in 2022, where he was succeeded byAaron Maté. In 2020, he announced that he would no longer release his writing throughRolling Stone and had begun self-publishing his online writing.[13] In recent years, Taibbi's writing has focused onculture war issues andcancel culture. He has criticizedmainstream media including its coverage ofRussian interference in the 2016 United States elections.[14] Between 2022 and 2023, Taibbi released several installments of theTwitter Files.
Taibbi has authored several books, includingThe Great Derangement (2009);Griftopia (2010);The Divide (2014);[15]Insane Clown President (2017);I Can't Breathe (2017); andHate Inc. (2019).
Matt Taibbi was born in 1970 inNew Brunswick, New Jersey.[2] Taibbi's father,Mike Taibbi, is anNBC television reporter whose biological mother was of mixedFilipino andNative Hawaiian descent, while his father was likely an American serviceman.[16] Mike Taibbi was adopted by anItalian-American couple in New York.[17] According to Taibbi, his surname is aSicilian name ofLebanese origin; however, he is of neither Sicilian nor Lebanese descent because his father was adopted.[16][18][19] He has also claimedIrish descent through his mother.[20]
Taibbi grew up in the Boston suburbs. His parents separated when he was young and he was largely raised by his mother. Because Taibbi was troubled with behavioral and academic problems, his parents sent him toConcord Academy.[14] He first attendedNew York University but was "unable to deal with being just one of thousands of faces in a city of millions" and transferred after his freshman year toBard College, where he graduated in 1992.[21][14] He spent a year abroad studying atLeningrad Polytechnic University, where he finished his credits for graduation from Bard.[22][2]
After completing his college work midsemester, Taibbi moved to New York City where he spent two months working as a waiter to save money for a plane ticket to Russia. In 1992, missing his college graduation, Taibbi moved toSaint Petersburg.[23] Seven months later, Taibbi moved toTashkent, Uzbekistan, where he began selling news articles more regularly. He returned to Saint Petersburg five months later, after being deported by theUzbek secret police for writing an article for theAssociated Press that was critical of PresidentIslam Karimov.[24][1] At the time of his deportation, Taibbi was the starting left fielder for the Uzbekistan national baseball team.[4] Six months later, Taibbi moved to Moscow to take a job at the English-language newspaperThe Moscow Times, where he worked as a sports editor for five months.[24][25][14]
Taibbi moved back to the U.S. doing part-time landscaping work before suffering a nervous breakdown and moving north, where he had an affair with a married woman. He then moved back to Russia to play pro baseball for two Russian clubs, Spartak, and the Red Army, in 1995.[24][4] After five months in Russia, Taibbi moved back to theEast Coast, where he worked as an investigator at a Boston-based private detective agency.[24][5] After seven months as a private detective, Taibbi moved to Russia to "write a book about serial murder" and began working forThe Moscow Times again, as a news reporter. He returned to the U.S. again after five months to resume his relationship with the divorcée but they broke up and Taibbi returned to Russia to work forThe Moscow Times for the third time. He initially planned to return to America in the summer of 1996 to rekindle their relationship, but found himself too busy covering the1996 Russian presidential election.[24]
Taibbi then moved toUlaanbaatar,Mongolia, where he played professional basketball in the Mongolian Basketball Association (MBA).[26][2][1] Taibbi became known as "The Mongolian Rodman", was paid $100/month to play,[26] and said he also hosted a radio show while there.[27][28] He later contracted pneumonia and, in early January 1997, returned to Boston for surgery to correct anempyema.[1][29][24] Doctors had suspected he was infected withbacterial meningitis, but later determined he was only a carrier of the bacteria and he recovered after a course of antibiotics.[23]
Shortly after his 27th birthday in March 1997, Taibbi returned to Moscow to take on a job as editor of the tabloidLiving Here, which had gone defunct at the time.[24] That same year, he left theLiving Here and joinedMark Ames to co-edit the English-language Moscow-based, bi-weeklyfree newspaper,The eXile,[2][1] which was written primarily for the city'sexpatriate community.The eXile's tone and content were highly controversial. For example, a regular column reported on a member of staff atThe eXile hiring a Russian prostitute and then writing a long "review" of the woman and the details of the sexual encounter. Its content was considered either brutally honest and gleefully tasteless or juvenile, misogynistic and even cruel.[30][31][32]
Taibbi wrote in English and Russian.[33] He also contributed toKomsomolskaya Pravda,Trud,Stringer andKommersant.[34][33]
Taibbi's first book,The Exile: Sex, Drugs, and Libel in the New Russia, co-authored with Ames, was published in 2000.[35] A film based on the book was under development by producersTed Hope andJames Schamus ofGood Machine but did not materialize.[36] He later stated that he was addicted toheroin while he did this early writing.[6]
In 2010, journalistJames Verini wrote inVanity Fair that during an interview in a Manhattan restaurant, he told Taibbi thatThe Exile was "redundant and discursive". Verini wrote that Taibbi became enraged, threw his coffee and a "Fuck you!" in Verini's face, followed him for half a block after he left the restaurant, and said "I still haven't decided what I'm going to do with you!"[6][37] Taibbi later described the incident as "an aberration from how I've behaved in the last six or seven years".[38][14]
In 2017, Taibbi was criticized for excerpts from a chapter written by Ames in the bookThe Exile: Sex, Drugs, and Libel in the New Russia that described sexual harassment of employees atThe eXile.[39] In a Facebook post responding to the controversy, Taibbi apologized for the "cruel and misogynistic language" used in the book, and said the work was conceived as a satire of the "reprehensible" behavior of American expatriates in Russia and that the description of events in the chapter was "fictional and not true". In 2017, theWashington Post published an article by journalist Kathy Lally about Taibbi and Ames' time at the eXile. Lally wrote that the "eXile's distinguishing feature, more than anything else, was its blinding sexism — which often targeted [her]" and that "so many of their sins were real".[40][41] Although the book presents itself as a work of non-fiction,[42] emails obtained byPaste in 2017 include a letter from the book's publisher stating that "This book combines exaggerated, invented satire and nonfiction reporting and was categorized as nonfiction because there is no category for a book that is both."[43] Two women portrayed in the book toldPaste magazine that none of the sexual harassment portrayed in the book "[ever] happened" and that it was a "ridiculous passage written by Mark".[43] Taibbi's publisher, Penguin Random House, dropped him after the controversy.[14]
In 2002, he returned to the United States to start the satirical bi-weeklyThe Beast in Buffalo, New York.[1] He left that publication a year later,[5] commenting: "Running a business and writing is too much." Taibbi continued as a freelancer forThe Nation,[1]Playboy,New York Press (where he wrote a regular political column for more than two years),[1]Rolling Stone,[1] andNew York Sports Express (as editor-at-large).
In March 2005, Taibbi's satirical essay, "The 52 Funniest Things About the Upcoming Death ofthe Pope",[44] published in theNew York Press, was denounced byHillary Clinton,Michael Bloomberg,Matt Drudge,Abe Foxman andAnthony Weiner. He left the paper in August 2005, shortly after his editorJeff Koyen was forced out over the article.[45] Taibbi defended the piece as "off-the-cuffburlesque of truly tasteless jokes," written to give his readers a break from a long run of his "fulminating political essays". Taibbi also said he was surprised at the vehement reactions to what he wrote "in the waning hours of aVicodin haze".[46]
In February 2008, Taibbi contributed a three-minute segment toReal Time with Bill Maher in which he interviewed residents ofYoungstown, Ohio before theOhio primary.[47] He was invited as a guest onMSNBC'sThe Rachel Maddow Show[48] and other MSNBC programs. He has also appeared onDemocracy Now![49] andChapo Trap House,[50] and was a contributor onCountdown with Keith Olbermann.[51] Taibbi has appeared on theThom Hartmann radio and television shows and theImus in the Morning Show on theFox Business network.
Taibbi wrote a column, "The Sports Blotter", for the free weekly newspaper,The Boston Phoenix.[28] He covered legal troubles involving professional and amateur athletes.[52]
In 2004, Taibbi began covering politics forRolling Stone.[5] Acontributing editor, he wrote feature-length articles on domestic and international affairs. He also wrote a weekly political online column, "The Low Post", for the magazine's website.[53]
Taibbi covered the2008 United States presidential election inYear of the Rat, a specialRolling Stone diary.[54]
After conservative commentatorAndrew Breitbart died in March 2012, Taibbi wrote an obituary inRolling Stone, entitled "Andrew Breitbart: Death of a Douche".[55][56] Taibbi also wrote: "Good! Fuck him. I couldn't be happier that he's dead." He wrote that the obituary was "at least half anhomage", which gave respect to aspects of Breitbart's style and also alluded to Breitbart's own derisive obituary ofTed Kennedy. In apostscript, Taibbi wrote that some fans of Breitbart were angered by the obituary and responded with "threats and insults".[55]
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In his reporting in the wake of the 2008subprime mortgage crisis and subsequentGreat Recession, Taibbi describedGoldman Sachs as "a greatvampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money".[7][57] In financial and political media the expression "Vampire Squids" has come to represent the perception of the financial and investment sector as entities that "sabotage production" and "sink the economy as they suck the life out of it in the form of rent."[58][7][59][60] Tackling the assistance to banks given inforeclosure courts, Taibbi traveled toJacksonville, Florida to observe the "rocket docket". He was brought in to observe a hearing with attorneyApril Charney.[61] He concluded that it processed foreclosures without regard to the legality of the financial instruments being ruled upon, and sped up the process to enable quick resale of the properties, while obscuring the fraudulent and predatory nature of the loans.[62]
In February 2014, Taibbi leftRolling Stone and joinedFirst Look Media to head a financial and political corruption-focused publication,Racket.[63] However, after management disputes with First Look's leadership delayed its launch and led to its cancellation, Taibbi returned toRolling Stone the following October.[64][65]
In August 2019, Taibbi launched a politicalpodcast,Useful Idiots, co-hosted withKatie Halper and released throughRolling Stone.[66][67][68] The podcast has since featured interviews with various guests includingLiz Franczak,[69] Andre Damon,[70]David Dayen,[71]Cornel West,[72]Glenn Greenwald,[73] andAaron Maté.[74]
In March 2021, Taibbi announced thatUseful Idiots would no longer be released byRolling Stone and would be self-published.[75] With a few changes in program support staff, it is published as both audio and video that features both a free subscription and a paid subscription.
In January 2022, he announced a sabbatical leave to write a book, and that in his absence, Maté would fill in for him.[76]
In 2018, Taibbi began publishing a novel,The Business Secrets of Drug Dealing: Adventures of the Unidentified Black Male, as a serialized subscription via email and a website with an anonymous partner.[77] The novel is fictional with true-crime elements.[77]
Taibbi continued publishing the novel on a Substack website that he titled initially The Taibbi Report and then The Fairway.[78][79][80] As he then published the book "Hate, Inc." in serial form on his Substack, that was used as the title. In 2019, when "Hate, Inc." completed, the Substack was still being published in addition to other assignments.[81] It went through additional name changes as Taibbi published both one-off posts and started projects that sometimes remained unfinished, until becoming TK News.[81]
In April 2020, Taibbi announced he would no longer publish his online writing throughRolling Stone, and henceforth, would publish his online writing independently. He stated that he would continue to contribute print features forRolling Stone and maintain theUseful Idiots podcast with Katie Halper. (In April 2021,Useful Idiots, under its same name, but with some support staff changes, also would move to self-publication.) Taibbi stated that his decision to move his writing to a self-published newsletter service was made independently and that he was not asked to leaveRolling Stone.[82][83] Taibbi branded his newsletterTK News, after a term used in manuscript preparation for publication and journalism, TK, that stands for"to come", indicating thatmore will follow.[84] After a period of publication with free subscriptions only, Taibbi introduced an additional, paid subscription featuring content that will not be provided as part of the free subscriptions. As of October 2021,TK News had more than 30,000 paying subscribers.[14] On January 24, 2023, the name was changed fromTK News toRacket News.
Racket News is a newsletter, blog, podcast, and book collection made available largely for free and the rest by subscription at www.racket.news.[85]Racket News is published online.[non-primary source needed] It is among a growing number of worker-owned journalism outlets including,404 Media,Defector Media, andHell Gate NYC.[86]
In addition to Taibbi, contributors include Jane Burn,Ford Fischer,Walter Kirn and Eric Salzman. Other contributors include Emily Bivens, Andrew Lowenthal, Jared Moore, cartoonist Daniel Medina and Matt Orfalea.[85]
On August 12, 2022, the podcastAmerica This Week was added toTK news. It is a weekly national news wrap-up with Taibbi andWalter Kirn, novelist and literary critic, that is released on Fridays. The duo also discuss a short story at the end of each episode.[87] A transcript of each episode is also published weekly and the podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, in addition toRacket News.[88]
Taibbi is one of the most popular writers on Substack and earns much more from the platform than he did writing forRolling Stone.[89]
On December 2, 2022, Taibbi began tweeting about andscreenshotting emails that executives ofTwitter sent each other concerning content moderation in 2020. The emails were provided to Taibbi[disputed (for: emails were provided) –discuss] by Twitter CEOElon Musk and documented parts of the discussions among Twitter's communication team about how Twitter should handle aNew York Postarticle about a laptop computer that had been owned byHunter Biden.[90][91][92][93] The documents, dubbed the "Twitter Files" and retweeted by Musk, were selected from "thousands of internal documents obtained by sources at Twitter".[90] Taibbi's report was in the form of a Twitter thread with screen shots of email exchanges between Twitter executives. Taibbi noted, "in exchange for the opportunity to cover a unique and explosive story, I had to agree to certain conditions" that he did not specify.[94][95]
Taibbi's presentation largely confirmed what was already known and did not contain any significant new revelations on the Hunter Biden laptop story.[96][97] Jeffrey Blehar, writing forNational Review, said that Taibbi's reporting "contained few, if any, explosive revelations for people who have been tuned in to the debacle surrounding Twitter's suppression of theNew York Post story on Hunter Biden's laptop".[98] Taibbi's thread included emails fromRo Khanna to former Twitter executiveVijaya Gadde, in which Khanna expressed concern about Twitter's decision to limit the circulation of theNew York Post article about Hunter Biden. Khanna wrote that Twitter's actions violated "1st Amendment principles".[99]
The third installment, released on December 9 by Taibbi, highlighted events within Twitter leading toDonald Trump'ssuspension from Twitter.[100][better source needed] The sixth installment, released on December 16 by Taibbi, described how the FBI contacted Twitter to suggest that action be taken against several accounts for allegedly spreading election disinformation.[101][102][better source needed] Taibbi's ninth installment, released on December 24, relates to the CIA and FBI's alleged involvement in Twitter content moderation.[103][better source needed] The fifteenth installment, released on January 27, 2023, by Taibbi, reports on the Hamilton 68 Dashboard maintained by theAlliance for Securing Democracy.[104][better source needed] The sixteenth installment, released on February 18 by Taibbi, reports on messages to Twitter by Maine senatorAngus King and U.S. State Department security engineer Mark Lenzi expressing concern regarding Twitter accounts they deemed suspicious.[105][non-primary source needed] The seventeenth installment, released on March 2, by Taibbi, reports on the Global Engagement Center, which was established by theCountering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act.[106][non-primary source needed] The nineteenth installment of the Twitter Files, "The Great Covid-19 Lie Machine, Stanford, the Virality Project, and the Censorship of "True Stories" raises questions about the government and social media censorship.[107]
On March 9, Taibbi testified, withMichael Shellenberger, before theUnited States House Committee on the Judiciary Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government in a hearing on the Twitter Files.[108][109] Several Democrats at the hearing criticized both Taibbi and Shellenberger, includingStacey Plaskett, who referred to both as "so-called journalists."[110]
Mehdi Hasan ofMSNBC interviewed Taibbi on April 6, presenting several errors in the Twitter Files reporting. Taibbi asserted that these errors were trivial. The next day, Taibbi announced he was leaving Twitter within days in response to Twitter banning links to Substack after it announced its new feature Notes, which has been characterized as a competitor to Twitter. Musk unfollowed Taibbi later that day.[111][112]
Taibbi received a visit fromInternal Revenue Service (IRS) agents the day he testified to Congress about the Twitter Files.Jim Jordan, chair of theHouse Judiciary Committee, has demanded that IRS turn over copies of documents related to its search.[113]
In February 2024, Taibbi revealed that he and Musk had a falling out which culminated in Musk messaging him, "You are dead to me. Please get off Twitter and just stay on Substack".[114] Taibbi later said Musk had been "very disappointing" on the issue of free speech.[115]
Since the mid-2010s, Taibbi's reporting has increasingly focused onculture war topics andcancel culture. He has also criticizedmainstream media and their coverage ofDonald Trump andRussian interference in the 2016 United States elections. His writing has since polarized readers and fellow journalists.[14]
Taibbi argues that both sides of the political media spectrum are complicit in dividing the country and fueling hate.[14] In 2019, Taibbi self-published the bookHate Inc., a critique of the mainstream media landscape.[116] Reviewing the book forPaste, Jason Rhode called it a "brilliant indictment of American media", praising the majority of the book but criticized Taibbi for "[spending] a section of his book both-sidesing bothMSNBC andFOX".[117]
During theMunk Debates on November 22, 2022, Taibbi and conservativeDouglas Murray successfully argued in favor of the motion "Be it resolved, don't trust Mainstream Media".[118][119]
In a June 2023 interview withThe Hub, Taibbi said that "I want the mainstream media to succeed. I think it needs to. The countries are not healthy if they don't have a functioning mass media and nobody believes them. And I think increasingly that's kind of the problem, is there's this lingering worsening trust issue that can only be addressed by dealing with some of the factual issues."[120]
Using the term "Russiagate", Taibbi covered the story aroundRussian interference in the 2016 United States elections and criticized the mainstream media coverage of theSpecial Counsel investigation.[121][122] Taibbi's bookHate Inc. includes a chapter, "Why Russiagate Is This Generation's WMD", in which he compares "Russiagate" to 2002–2003 allegations thatIraq had access to weapons of mass destruction, which were used byGeorge W. Bush's administration as the most prominentrationale for the Iraq War.[123]
In October 2019, Taibbi argued that thewhistleblower in theTrump–Ukraine scandal was not a "real whistleblower" because the whistleblower would have had their life affected by prosecution or being sent to prison.[124] Taibbi also quoted former CIA analystRobert Baer who argued that the whistleblower was part of a "palace coup against Trump".[124]
In response to the March 30, 2023,indictment of Donald Trump, Taibbi said, "If presidents think they will be chased into jail under thin pretexts as ex-presidents, they'll try even harder to never leave office. This is how autocracies are born."[125]
Regarding theHunter Biden laptop controversy, Taibbi said that the problem "is not even so much whether or not that story was important or whether it was terribly damning, it was more the behavior of the media during that story that was really troubling. Not just turning a blind eye to it being suppressed, but also as we found out, planning these what they call a tabletop exercise to 'How should we all respond when this story comes out?'".[120][independent source needed]
Taibbi has testified before congress on multiple occasions on the topic of censorship.
| Topic | Date | Committee | Subcommittee |
|---|---|---|---|
| "Hearing on The Weaponization of The Federal Government"[126] | November 30, 2023[126] | United States House Committee on the Judiciary | Select Subcommittee on The Weaponization of The Federal Government |
| "The Censorship-Industrial Complex"[127] | February 12, 2025[127] | United States House Committee on the Judiciary | Full Committee |
| "Censorship-Industrial Complex: The Need for First Amendment Safeguards at the State Department"[128] | April 1, 2025[129] | House Foreign Affairs Committee | Full Committee |
In 2021,Ross Barkan ofNew York wrote, "Taibbi is—or was, depending on your view—one of the most celebrated investigative journalists of his generation." He continued, "Taibbi's critics view him as a reporter turned red-pilled culture warrior chasing subscriptions", while "Taibbi's defenders say he hasn't changed. Rather, it's the world that has grown more illiberal and hysterical." Taibbi argued that he had not changed, but rather that reactions to Trump had "fundamentally changed the business".[14] In 2023,Nick Gillespie ofReason wrote that when Taibbi attacked Hillary Clinton "as a sellout, argued that the Russiagate narrative was mostly bullshit, and equated the manipulative tactics of right and left media personalities, progressives gave him the cold shoulder."[89]
On April 1, 2025, U.S. RepresentativeSydney Kamlager-Dove accused Taibbi of being a "serial sexual harrasser" during a hearing on a subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. On April 3, Taibbi announced a $10 million libel suit against her.[130]
Taibbi is married to Jeanne, a family physician.[2][131] They have three children.[132]
Taibbi previously lived inJersey City, New Jersey.[131] As of 2021, he lives inMountain Lakes, New Jersey.[14]
In a 2008 interview withHemant Mehta forPatheos, Taibbi described himself as an "atheist/agnostic".[133]
I didn't exactly dive into the task but did go as far as to locate a longtime official of the Foundling Hospital. A month after I'd related information about the Taibbi family and the skeletal story I'd been told about my birth and infancy, I received a short letter from that official. All she could add to the few facts I'd been told, she wrote, was that my birth mother was "an attractive young Filipino-Hawaiian girl named Camila, a girl of average intelligence, all of whose siblings died in childbirth." My father, she added, was likely "An American serviceman with the last name "Denny," address unknown.
[Taibbi] is the author of the book 'Hate Inc.' and co-host of the 'Useful Idiots' podcast.
I was on Rolling Stone's Useful Idiots podcast with Matt Taibbi and Katie Halper discussing a bunch of stuff.
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