I talked with some of our reporters about the article. This is an edited version of those conversations.

What did you think when this story broke?

SHEERA FRENKEL: Last year started off with The National Enquirer publishing photos and texts from Mr. Bezos’ phone. It seemed like history repeating itself.

My first reaction was to get the forensic report. I wanted to see exactly what the investigators had found and why they seemed so confident in their assertion that the Saudi crown prince had personally been involved in the hacking.

MATTHEW ROSENBERG: That the malware came straight from M.B.S.’s WhatsApp account blew me away. It’s one thing to say the Saudis hacked a phone — intel services around the world hack phones. Lord knows the Americans do it all the time.

But it’s a whole other thing to say that the crown prince was personally involved. It’s amazing. He meets Mr. Bezos on a visit to the United States. They strike up a casual conversation over WhatsApp — and then he uses the “in” to plant spyware!

It really challenges the idea that the elite are a group apart. Until now, it’s always looked like the elite left it to their minions to battle it out in business or politics or espionage or whatever while they met up in places like Davos and, you know, kept it on the level with one another. I guess Mohammed bin Salman really does play by his own rules.

The exchange of the texts themselves happened in 2018. Why is this all coming out now?

KAREN WEISE: There is a documentary screening at the Sundance Film Festival on Friday about the Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s murder. According to The Post, one of the United Nations experts is on camera connecting M.B.S. to the hack of Mr. Bezos’ phone. Best I can tell, the United Nations experts wanted to make their statements public before the film screened.