Evidence of Spiro’s meteoric rise may very well be felt all through the social media firm on Thursday and Friday, when a big portion of the corporate’s workforce was terminated whereas Musk frantically tried to cease an exodus of advertisers. Musk has assumed the general public face of Twitter’s overhaul, however Spiro has achieved quite a lot of the heavy lifting behind the scenes on nearly all authorized issues. Musk has constructed an interior circle that depends on individuals with an indefatigable work ethic and a powerful sense of loyalty, traits that Spiro embodies.
He first labored for the billionaire again in 2019, when he helped quash a defamation lawsuit introduced by a British diver who Musk known as a “pedo guy” throughout certainly one of his Twitter fights. His function in Musk-world skyrocketed, nonetheless, after he helped lead Musk’s doomed authorized argument that he ought to be capable to again out of the authorized contract he signed to purchase Twitter earlier this yr.
Musk would finally reverse himself, once more, and determine to purchase the corporate in spite of everything. That deal — which Musk closed final month for $44 billion — has launched a brand new chapter in Spiro’s profession. Hours after Musk closed the acquisition and fired Twitter’s CEO and three different prime executives, Spiro gained oversight of Twitter’s authorized, advertising, and belief and security groups, that are accountable for Twitter’s elections work, based on 4 individuals acquainted with Spiro’s function who weren’t licensed to talk publicly.
The lawyer has additionally been concerned within the plans for shedding 1000’s of Twitter workers, which went into fruition Thursday as the corporate started terminating round half of its greater than 7,000 employees. Firing that many individuals unfold over a number of states and nations is a gargantuan activity, and layoff notices obtained by workers elsewhere have been fastidiously tailor-made to keep away from working afoul of native legal guidelines.
A spokesperson for Twitter didn’t return a request for remark. It couldn’t be realized whether or not Musk plans for Spiro to play a longer-term function with the corporate or was simply introduced in to be a part of the instant shake up.
Spiro isn’t the one one in Musk’s interior circle taking an energetic function. Jason Calacanis, an investor, podcaster and affiliate of Musk, has been pitching concepts for brand spanking new options for Twitter and assembly with advertisers to attempt to guarantee them in regards to the firm’s new route. David Sacks, who labored with Musk years in the past at PayPal and has been a profitable enterprise investor since then, can also be on board.
But Spiro is exclusive in his lack of earlier company expertise. He’s been a lawyer since 2008, and although he has in depth white-collar protection expertise, he isn’t a skilled supervisor.
Musk is a lawyer’s nightmare. He tweets continually, getting in spats with celebrities, politicians and random strangers. Sometimes his unserious musings run up in opposition to the truth that he helms a number of large corporations, together with one which’s publicly-traded, resulting in lawsuits and costs.
He churns via legal professionals, as soon as slicing ties with a significant legislation agency as a result of they refused to fireplace an worker he didn‘t like. Tesla, his electric vehicle company, has had three legal heads in the past two years.
But Spiro has apparently cracked the code of working with Musk. Despite failing to extricate Musk from the Twitter deal, Spiro has been elevated even further.
Spiro has worked for years as a defense lawyer, representing some of the biggest names in sports and entertainment, including Aaron Hernandez, Jay-Z, Chance the Rapper and Naomi Osaka. His rapid rise to the center of Musk’s interior circle, and his newfound duty for serving to run Twitter, exhibits how the tech billionaire prizes loyalty and tenacity over expertise and a standard talent set.
“He’s got a dogged personality and he will get after and continue to get after an issue until he gets what he wants,” mentioned Ronald Sullivan, a professor at Harvard Law School who has had Spiro assist him train a category on trial litigation and has labored on a handful of circumstances with him.
While a typical associate at a company agency might need six or seven years-long trials occurring directly, Spiro is commonly working 30 to 40 shorter ones directly. “He is in constant motion,” Sullivan mentioned. “That is Alex personified, he seems to have unlimited wells of energy and he takes on all sorts of cases.”
Spiro grew up in Massachusetts and stayed native for faculty — finding out psychology at Tufts University. While there he labored at Harvard’s psychiatric hospital, working with youngsters with autism and Asperger’s syndrome, and thought of occurring to medical faculty, he instructed Harvard’s newspaper the Crimson in 2020.
But he opted for legislation as a substitute, telling the Crimson he noticed it as a greater option to struggle for the problems he cared about. He graduated from Harvard Law in 2008 and did a fellowship on the Central Intelligence Agency earlier than getting a job as a prosecutor within the New York County District Attorney’s workplace. In 2013 he obtained a job as a protection lawyer at Brafman & Associates, a New York City legislation agency with big-name purchasers together with pharmaceutical government Martin Shkreli and former film producer Harvey Weinstein.
In 2014 he represented rapper Bobby Shmurda who was charged in a 69-count indictment that included homicide. The trial went viral, with hip-hop followers mounting a marketing campaign known as “free bobby shmurda” that was half web meme, half protest the U.S. jail system.
The Shmurda case introduced new media consideration to Spiro and landed him on “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah.” Comedian Roy Wood Jr. introduced him with champagne and a cake that mentioned “You did it,” for successful the case. Spiro responded in a critical tone, saying he warned his consumer it was extremely dangerous to not take a plea deal and go to trial with the case.
Since then, he’s represented a parade of well-known purchasers. In 2016 he helped symbolize former NFL participant Aaron Hernandez who was standing trial for allegedly killing two males, whereas interesting his conviction on a special homicide cost. The tragic case had a tragic ending, as Hernandez was acquitted within the double homicide trial however died by suicide days later. Spiro went on to win a lawsuit for former NBA participant Thabo Sefolosha in opposition to the New York Police Department for utilizing extreme pressure in opposition to him. He represented a number of different well-known individuals together with musician and investor Jay-Z, billionaire proprietor of the New England Patriots Robert Kraft, and tennis star Naomi Osaka.
In 2019 he started working for Musk, who had been sued for defamation by British cave diver Vernon Unsworth. Musk had supplied to construct a submarine to assist rescue a bunch of Thai teenagers who had been trapped in a cave, and was accused by critics on-line of forcing himself into the information story to get credit score. The diver was a part of the workforce who truly did rescue the boys.
During a Twitter spat, Musk known as Unsworth a “pedo guy.” In court docket paperwork, Musk was quoted saying that emailing unverified details about Unsworth to a reporter in hopes it could result in an investigation was “one of the dumbest things I’ve ever done.”
Still, Spiro gained the case for him.
Since then, he’s represented Musk in a variety of authorized conditions. He defended Musk in a struggle with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which accused him of breaking an earlier settlement to not tweet about Tesla’s share worth after he mentioned on-line that he was taking Tesla personal at $420 a share — a marijuana reference. He took on the Alameda County well being division when it shut down a Tesla manufacturing unit in the course of the early months of the pandemic out of concern over coronavirus transmission. And he defended Musk in one other defamation lawsuit introduced by an internet critic of Tesla.
He’s taken some uncommon approaches in his work for Musk. In a submitting within the SEC case, he quoted lyrics from the 2002 Eminem Song “Without Me.” “The [SEC] won’t let me be or let me be me so let me see,” the submitting mentioned. “They tried to shut me down …”
Then got here the Twitter acquisition. Musk agreed to purchase the corporate for $44 billion in April, however as fears a few recession and rising rates of interest causes tech shares to fall, his internet value shrank and analysts started suggesting the deal worth was a lot too excessive.
Soon after, Musk was criticizing the corporate, saying it had misled traders in regards to the variety of bots and pretend accounts it had. In July, he mentioned he was pulling out of the deal, and Twitter sued him to pressure him to comply with his signed contract and undergo with it.
At the time, authorized specialists mentioned Musk had a tricky case, having signed the deal, waiving the best to take a deep take a look at the corporate, and committing to do every part he may to shut it. Spiro and a handful of different legal professionals labored to construct a countersuit for Musk anyway, constructing on the bots argument and accusing Twitter of not offering the knowledge it had promised him.
When The Washington Post reported in August {that a} former Twitter safety chief was accusing the corporate of getting dangerous cybersecurity practices, Spiro efficiently fought for Musk to have the ability to amend his grievance in opposition to Twitter, arguing in court docket that the whistleblower’s allegations confirmed the corporate was not forthcoming throughout discovery.
Musk’s takeover of Twitter has been celebrated by conservative politicians and media figures as a win as a result of the billionaire has criticized the corporate’s content material moderation insurance policies and mentioned banning former president Donald Trump was a mistake. Sacks, one other outstanding member of Musk’s interior circle who has been energetic on the firm during the last week, is a conservative media determine in his personal proper.
But Spiro is tougher to pin down. He hasn’t publicly aligned himself with both political get together, however he has labored with left-leaning teams on efforts to alter the prison justice system. He serves as an adviser to the charitable group United Justice Coalition, alongside CNN commentator Van Jones and Rashad Robinson, the president of the civil rights group Color of Change, which coincidentally is likely one of the organizations which known as for an advertiser boycott on Twitter out of concern that layoffs would have an effect on the corporate’s capacity to police its platform for hate speech.
He additionally has connections within the Washington-area. Earlier this yr, he attended the White House correspondents’ backyard brunch that was additionally attended by Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Anthony Fauci and outstanding media figures.
At Twitter, Spiro is already working as a conduit for Musk, a loyalist the billionaire can belief to steer the corporate in his absence. During the primary week of Musk’s possession, the brand new CEO didn’t maintain any all-company conferences or ship out an e-mail acknowledging he was now in cost. But as employees shared intel and tried to piece collectively what the brand new regular of their firm was, one identify saved developing as somebody who was making choices: Alex Spiro.
Faiz Siddiqui contributed to this report.