In one of the most disquieting remarks ever to emerge from the hothouse of Silicon Valley, Uber Senior Vice President Emil Michael has suggested hiring "opposition researchers" to dig up dirt on journalists who oppose his company.

Michael floated the notion of spending $1 million on looking into "your personal lives, your families," according to BuzzFeed.

"Nobody would know it was us," he reportedly added. Michael's remarks were made at a private off-the-record dinner in New York Friday.

Michael came to Uber a year ago after serving as the COO of Klout and as a White House fellow who worked at the Pentagon. He reportedly focused his investigation suggestions on Pando Daily founder Sarah Lacy, who has written several articles critical of the company and its approach to female passengers.

Suggesting that taxi drivers were more likely to attack women than Uber drivers, Michael allegedly said Lacy should be held "personally responsible" if any woman was assaulted in a cab after following Lacy's advice to delete the app.

"We have not, do not and will not investigate journalists," Uber spokesperson Nairi Hourdajian told Mashable. "Those remarks have no basis in the reality of our approach."

Hourdajian also offered this apology from Michael: “The remarks attributed to me at a private dinner — borne out of frustration during an informal debate over what I feel is sensationalistic media coverage of the company I am proud to work for — do not reflect my actual views and have no relation to the company’s views or approach. They were wrong no matter the circumstance and I regret them.”

That, as observers noted, was a rather curious apology: refusing to take ownership of the remarks "attributed" to him on the one hand, regretting them on the other. Lacy says that Michael called her Monday evening and asked to talk off the record; when she refused those terms, he hung up.

Much later, Michael tweeted an apology to Lacy and another Pando Daily editor:

@paulcarr I agree and I unconditionally apologize for my comments. They were plain wrong and I feel terrible about them. — Emil Michael (@emilmichael) November 18, 2014

@sarahcuda Neither me nor my company would ever engage in such activities. Again, I apologize. — Emil Michael (@emilmichael) November 18, 2014

It's not the first time the company has been under fire for overly aggressive tactics. This summer the company reportedly assembled a "street team" tasked with signing up for accounts with its rival service, Lyft, then ordering rides and canceling them. Lyft said it had lost 5,000 rides over a 10-month period to such tactics; another startup called Gett said it had fallen victim to the same tactics from Uber, for which Uber later apologized.

Uber CEO Travis Kalanick has described himself as a "freedom fighter" who has taken a position of "principled confrontation" with city governments and taxi regulators around the world. The company recently hired Obama campaign veteran David Plouffe to help it navigate the various local political landscapes as it expands. The company has raised more than $1 billion and been valued at $17 billion.

Ironically, Kalanick has been meeting with journalists in New York over the past couple of weeks — as part of what has been described as a "charm offensive."

Twitter was full of outrage — not just from journalists, but from investors and other tech leaders Monday night:

What an outrageous and utterly irresponsible point of view. Michael should resign or be fired. Let's see what the Uber board does. — Ken Lerer (@KenLerer) November 18, 2014

Uber employees: Leave now. You cannot fix the culture. Your leaders have shown who they are, far too often. — Anil Dash (@anildash) November 18, 2014

Outrageous—deserves public condemnation. Uber exec wants to do hatchet job on journalists starting with @sarahcuda http://t.co/VVe7Q97fcu — Vivek Wadhwa (@wadhwa) November 18, 2014

Here's the cover of Travis Kalanick that we decided not to run. Too negative, we said. Perhaps we were wrong? pic.twitter.com/0H5m14KmoJ — Jon Steinberg (@jonsteinberg31) November 18, 2014

One Uber investor, Chris Sacca, offered a lukewarm denunciation of Michael's comments:

2/ What @emilmichael was reported to have said was awful. No excuse. None. But I'm encouraged that he recognizes that and is apologizing. — Chris Sacca (@sacca) November 18, 2014

Meanwhile, Breaking Bad actor Aaron Paul seemed not to have gotten the memo, sending this poorly-timed (and probably scheduled) tweet as the controversy unfolded. The tweet was later deleted.

Curious about trying Uber? Sign up and use code hqnk9 and your ride is free. Way to make the holidays better Uber. Thank you. #YeahBitch — Aaron Paul (@aaronpaul_8) November 18, 2014

BONUS: What Is Uber?