Matt Taibbi
Heterodox independent; anti-establishment media critic· 2.2M followers · tracked by RisingPolitics
49.5Credibility Score (0–100) · ranked #64 of the creators we track
Matt Taibbi ranks #64 by credibility versus #59 by raw follower count — their raw follower total sits ahead of where their audience quality places them.
Matt Taibbi is an author and journalist who publishes the independent newsletter and podcast Racket News on Substack and previously spent years as a contributing editor at Rolling Stone. Known for reporting on finance, media, and politics, he was among the journalists who reported on the "Twitter Files" and co-hosts the podcast America This Week with novelist Walter Kirn.
Where Matt Taibbi posts
Xmtaibbi · 2.2M followersVisit ↗YouTube@racketnews · 47K subscribersVisit ↗Common questions
Is Matt Taibbi left or right?
Taibbi sits in the heterodox, plague-on-both-houses independent space: his Racket News writing in 2025-2026 argues that both parties are losing public confidence, and pieces like "The Politics of Neither" and "America Needs a Boring and Sane Party" reject alignment with either side. He built his reputation as a left-populist finance and media reporter at Rolling Stone, then moved to an independent, subscriber-funded Substack model, and his 2022 Twitter Files reporting and repeated congressional testimony (most recently February 2025) made government-driven censorship his signature issue, aligning him with the right on speech even as he keeps criticizing Trump directly, including over the Iran war in 2026. He rejects being labeled right-wing; in late 2025 he sued a journalist and Hachette Books for defamation over a book characterizing him as bought by the tech right, a suit dismissed in May 2026. His core stance is hostility to legacy media, the security state, and both party establishments rather than a conventional left-right position.
Positioning as of July 2026 · descriptive, not an endorsement. How we label lean
How credible is Matt Taibbi's audience?
Matt Taibbi scores 49.5 out of 100 on the RisingPolitics Credibility Score, ranking #64 among the political creators we track. The score starts with audience size, subtracts accounts that look fake, and weighs how strongly the audience actually engages.
How many followers does Matt Taibbi have?
Matt Taibbi has about 2.2M followers combined across X and YouTube.
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