Twitter Executive ‘Exited’ by Musk Leaves Lima as Top Law Leader

Twitter Inc.’s sole remaining deputy general counsel, Regina Lima, is in line to run its legal operations after her colleague “was exited” Tuesday over his handling of company information, according to four people familiar with the matter.

Lima, who has worked for Twitter since early 2014 and oversees legal for commercial, marketing, and content partnerships, is the highest-ranking law executive after the departure of former FBI general counsel Jim Baker, who was the only other deputy general counsel at the company.

“In light of concerns about Baker’s possible role in suppression of information important to the public dialogue, he was exited from Twitter today,” Musk tweeted Tuesday. Musk added that Baker’s explanation for his actions was “unconvincing.”

Baker was involved in the release of Twitter executive emails detailing the company’s decision in October 2020 to restrict access to a New York Post story about Hunter Biden based on information from a laptop that the news organization said was dropped off at a repair shop in Delaware.

Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan partner Alex Spiro, a New York-based litigator and personal lawyer to Musk who has been serving as Twitter’s interim head of legal, didn’t respond to a request for comment. The company also didn’t respond.

Lima, a former head of international legal at Twitter, was promoted last year to her deputy general counsel role. Twitter hired her after she spent two years as an associate general counsel for Latin America at Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc., and after Lima had served as general counsel for Brazil at Yahoo Inc.

A Brazilian national, Lima relocated to Miami last year from São Paulo on a US visa, according to four people familiar with the matter. Her registration with the Florida Bar lists her as an “authorized house counsel.”

Lima was summoned to company headquarters in San Francisco after Baker’s ouster, according to one of the people. She didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Baker also didn’t respond to a request for comment. He had once been tabbed to become Twitter’s co-general counsel under a never-executed succession plan the company’s former general counsel had put it in place before Musk fired him.

Thinned Bench

Twitter has lost more than half of its in-house lawyers, including several senior attorneys, raising concerns about the depth of legal knowledge that remains within the company, Bloomberg Law reported last month.

While Lima is the most senior lawyer still at Twitter by title, there are a handful of others who have worked at the company for a similar duration who remain with the social media company.

Christian Dowell, a former senior lawyer at Yahoo who joined Twitter as an associate general counsel in 2020, shortly before Baker was hired by the company, is now the sole remaining in-house product lawyer. He is also a senior director.

Dowell previously was a deputy general counsel at Quora Inc., a question-and-answer website that named a new legal chief a year ago, and an associate general counsel at Meta’s Facebook.

Other in-house legal group leaders include director and global head of employment law Mary Hansbury and director and associate general counsel Jerusha Royal. Both joined Twitter in 2015 after working at Sega of America Inc. and VMware Inc., respectively, and also previously spent time at Morrison & Foerster.

Sulfaro, who joined Twitter in 2016, was promoted earlier this year to director and legal counsel for content and creator partnerships.

Twitter’s online jobs board currently has openings for several engineering positions but none for its legal team.