Comment by nowayjoseaway

Huh? He does this type of thing all the time, it's a defining part of his personality. You only need to follow his Twitter so see how consistently and strongly he counters anything that makes him look bad. For the really nasty stuff he does behind the scenes you need to dig a little deeper.

A few examples off the top of my head:

  - Called the employer of a lawyer in Wyoming to get him fired for criticizing him on Twitter.
  - Tried to get the student who was exposing how the self-driving demos were faked expelled, then tried to sue him on false charges.
  - Asked a reporter to investigate the cave diver on a baseless accusation of pedophilia because he made him look bad. When that didn't work, used his private security to try to plant the same stories in the UK.

Never mind the stuff he does to his own employees, especially whistleblowers.

In fact it would be contrary to his personality if he didn't send an e-mail to the founders with a message like "Does this person work at Stripe?" with the tweet attached, making it clear what he wants done without explicitly saying it so he can pretend to have plausible deniability.