Twitter under Musk: Keyholes, Killers, and Bose-Focusing: When Twitter Will Be Forbidden by Insensitivity to Political Perturbations
Two people familiar with the deal said that Musk had taken control of the company and that he had ousted the CEO and CFO.
After months of uncertainty about Musk’s pending acquisition, advertisers are now confronting questions around how Musk will change the platform, which is already an also-ran in the digital ad space despite its outsized political influence. Musk, known as both an innovative entrepreneur and an erratic figure, has promised to rethink Twitter’s content moderation policies and undo permanent bans of controversial figures, including former President Donald Trump.
It’s a theme he reiterated both in public, telling Twitter employees at an all-staff meeting that the platform should allow all legal speech, and in private, texting investor Antonio Gracias that “Free speech matters most when it’s someone you hate spouting what you think is bull****.”
The experts who study social networks warn that if it’s possible to allow all legal speech on the internet, it would open the door to toxicity and false claims about the safety of voting and the effectiveness of vaccines.
For a “keyhole view of what Twitter under Musk will look like,” just look at alternative platforms such as Parler, Gab and Truth Social that promise fewer restrictions on speech, said Angelo Carusone, president of the liberal nonprofit watchdog group Media Matters for America.
On those sites, he said, “the feature is the bug — where being able to say and do the kinds of things that are prohibited from more mainstream social media platforms is actually why everyone gravitates to them. And what we see there is that they are cauldrons of misinformation and abuse.”
On top of loosening content moderation rules, a Musk-owned Twitter would also likely usher in the return of former President Donald Trump. The insurrection at the U.S. Capitol resulted in Trump being banned from use of the micro-blogging site for breaking its rules.
He had agreed to join the company’s board after agreeing to end the permanent bans of certain accounts, but soon backpedaled.
Alex Jones was kicked off of the internet for abusive behavior, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene was suspended from the internet because her account was found to be false about vaccines.
Since meeting with Musk earlier this week, representatives of the organizations said, Twitter’s new owner has demonstrated “erratic” behavior that has “betrayed” the commitments he made privately to the groups.
The person urged Musk to hire “someone who has a savvy cultural/political view” to lead enforcement, suggesting “a Blake Masters type.” Masters is the Republican Senate candidate from Arizona who has been endorsed by Trump and agrees with his false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him.
Facebook can re-platform Trump, and it’s good news for the billionaire whose social media empire is seized by Donald Trump
Allowing Trump and others to return could set a precedent for other social networks, including Meta-owned Facebook, which is considering whether to reinstate the former president when its own ban on him expires in January 2023.
It would be easier for the Meta president of global affairs to say that Trump is already back on the social networking site if he’s re-platformed. We might as well let him back on Facebook,’” said Nicole Gill, executive director of Accountable Tech, a progressive advocacy group.
The company filing states that all previous members of Twitter’s board, including recently ousted CEO Parag Agrawal and chairman Bret Taylor, are no longer directors “in accordance with the terms of the merger agreement.” The filing says that Musk is the sole director of the company.
Musk privately clashed with Agrawal in April, immediately before deciding to make a bid for the company, according to text messages later revealed in court filings.
That is good news for the billionaire, who has claimed that the company is overstaffed for its size, and has complained that the costs outstrip revenues.
According to the Washington Post, Musk told potential investors that he plans to cut three quarters of the company’s staff when he takes over. The newspaper reported on sources familiar with the deliberations.
He may have little choice other than to find alternate sources of revenue besides advertising, given the weak state of the digital ad market and the changes he wants to make to content moderation.
“Advertisers want to know that their ads are not going to appear alongside extremists, that they’re not going to be subsidizing or associating with the types of things that would turn off potential customers,” Carusone said.
Twitter Shouldn’t Be a Free For All Hellscape: Musk’s “Dear CEO” Tells Us What he Means
Everyone’s guess is what he meant. Musk told employees that the company should copy the “super-app” that combines messaging, payments, shopping, ride-sharing and social media, dubbed “WeNote” in China.
Other American tech companies have tried this strategy, but so far Chinese-style super-apps have not caught on in the United States.
Insider Intelligence principal analyst Jasmine Enberg said Musk has good reason to avoid a massive shakeup of Twitter’s ad business because Twitter’s revenues have taken a beating from the weakening economy, months of uncertainty surrounding Musk’s proposed takeover, changing consumer behaviors and the fact that “there’s no other revenue source waiting in the wings.”
Musk wrote a letter to Twitter saying that he doesn’t want the platform to become a “free-for-all-hellscape” where anything can be said with no consequences.
In a post on Thursday he mentioned the need to follow the laws of the land and be warm and welcoming to all. In order to become the most respected advertising platform in the world that strengthens your brand and grows your enterprise, let us build something extraordinary together.
A Delaware judge set a Friday deadline for the deal to be finalized. If there was no agreement, she would schedule a trial.
Although they came right away, there were many expected personnel changes and almost certainly the first of many changes the visionary CEO will make.
What’s New with Musk at the New York Stock Exchange after the Stock Market Opens? An Analysis of Twitter Harassment on the Company’s Top Lawyer
About the same time, he used Twitter to criticize Gadde, the company’s top lawyer. There was a wave of harassment of him from other accounts. The harassment included racist and misogynistic attacks, along with calls for Musk to fire her, for Gadde, who is an 11 year employee of the social networking site. On Thursday, after she was fired, the harassing tweets lit up once again.
He said there is a risk that social media will splinter into far right wing and far left wing echo chambers that cause more hate and divide our society.
But it’s also a realization that having no content moderation is bad for business, putting Twitter at risk of losing advertisers and subscribers, she said.
“You do not want a place where consumers just simply are bombarded with things they do not want to hear about, and the platform takes no responsibility,” Yildirim said.
The Delaware Chancery Court ordered the deadline to close to be Friday. It is the most recent step in the battle between Musk and the social media network, which began when Musk tried to back out of his deal to acquire the company. If the two sides don’t meet Friday’s deadline, the next step could be a November trial that could lead to a judge forcing Musk to complete the deal.
In addition to working at the HQ, Musk has been active in the community. He talked about implementing some big changes at the $44 billion acquisition, including deletions of a conspiracy theory. Here’s what’s happened so far:
The New York Stock Exchange notified investors that it will suspend trading of the shares of the company before the stock market opens on Friday due to Musk’s plan to go private.
Steve Jobs and Tesla: Focusing on the Results of Musk’s Plan to Turn Silicon Valley Into a Silicon Factory: A Conversation with Musk on Twitter
The company’s chief customer officer appeared to endorse Musk’s Thursday message when she said that she had a great discussion with him on Wednesday.
Musk’s apparent enthusiasm about visiting Twitter headquarters this week stood in sharp contrast to one of his earlier suggestions: The building should be turned into a homeless shelter because so few employees actually worked there.
According to the note, advertisers are now focused on advertising revenue and want to see more “relevant ads” like those that collect and analyze users’ data.
I went to Apple’s headquarters in 1998 to listen to Steve Jobs’ plan for the company. He had been its interim CEO for almost a year, after returning to the company that fired him over a decade earlier. Greeting me in the boardroom of his suite at One Infinite Loop, he went to the whiteboard and began scrawling out his solution to the company’s business woes. He had a new product plan, a new product, and a workforce revitalized by an inspiring ad campaign.
Musk should not be focused on his own successes to realize the absurdity of his haste. In 2008, the company was five years old. The company didn’t post an annual profit until 2020 after Musk came up with a plan to turn it around. Musk deservedly gets a lot of credit for what Tesla has achieved—and for, among other things, his persistence. SpaceX, Musk’s other company, is private and doesn’t report earnings. But making rocket ships is the ultimate test of patience—it takes years to even launch successfully, and cutting corners to go faster can wind up killing people.
What do investors think when they think about the Federal Reserve? An investor’s perspective on Powell’s decision to end interest rate hikes in a stock market crash
A version of this story first appeared in CNN Business’ Before the Bell newsletter. Not a subscriber? You can sign up right here. You can listen to an audio version of the newsletter by clicking the same link.
What will the Federal Reserve do at its meeting in December? The Fed says they will use hard data to make their decision, even though analysts can guess all they want.
That means key housing, labor, and inflation reports will likely have outsized effects on the market as investors speculate about what they might mean for the future of interest rates.
What is happening? No one can move markets like Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell — with just a few words on Wednesday he crushed investors’ hopes of an interest rate pivot and sent stocks plunging. Powell said the Fed’s current hiking regime meant to fight inflation was a long way from finished. “It’s very premature, in my view, to think about or be talking about pausing.”
The central bank does not think inflation will fall until next year. The interest rate hikes will be required in the coming months.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/04/investing/premarket-stocks-trading/index.html
Premarket Stocks Trading: How the Labor Market grew in September–The First Sign of Growth in the Economy and the Consumer Cost of Products and Services
The government report will show that the economy created another 200,000 jobs in October, but it will still be a very solid number since demand for jobs is not keeping up with supply.
That means more inflation. Businesses have to pay more for employees and goods and services in order to stay open. The wage report will be watched closely by the Fed. In September, wages rose by 5% from a year ago.
There is a possible upside: Another jobs report in December is expected ahead of the Fed meeting. If both reports show a downward trajectory in employment, that could be enough to placate Fed officials, even if the unemployment rate remains historically low.
The core inflation rate, which excludes food and oil, rose 0.7% in September, matching August’s increase and not a good sign for the Fed. And analysts expect to see another large 0.5% increase in October.
The price of goods and services purchased in the United States by consumers is reflected in PCE. The Fed believes the measure is more accurate than CPI because it accounts for a wider range of purchases from a broader range of buyers.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/04/investing/premarket-stocks-trading/index.html
The Housing Market Overheated after the Pandemic: The Bank of England and its Interest Rates Are Up to a Percentage Point
The housing market has been impacted by the Feds actions to fight inflation, and is now showing signs of cooling.
The average rate for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rose to 6.85% last week from 3.09% a year ago, as elevated borrowing costs are leading to a decline in demand.
Powell said that the housing market was overheated after the Pandemic because demand went up and rates went down. The big effect of our policies is in that area.
The Bank of England raised its interest rates by three-quarters of a percentage point, the biggest hike in 33 years to fight soaring inflation.
A two-year recession would be longer than the one that followed the 2008 global financial crisis, though the Bank of England said that any declines in GDP heading into 2024 would likely be relatively small.
Several employees of the micro-blogging site filed a lawsuit saying that the layoffs violate federal law.
The email added that “to help ensure the safety” of employees and Twitter’s systems, the company’s offices “will be temporarily closed and all badge access will be suspended.”
TheWARN Act requires any company with over 100 employees to give 60 days written notice if it plans to cut 50 or more jobs at a single site.
The impact of Musk’s Twitter advertising on the current lords and peasants, and companies that are monitoring the progress of the platform
Musk on Tuesday said that he would be charging $8 a month for a subscription to the social networking service which would allow anyone to get a blue check mark and verify their account. That’s a steep haircut from his original plan to charge users $19.99 a month to get or keep a verified account.
The richest man in the world used an idiocy to describe his assessment of the current lords and peasants of social media. He added: “Power to the people! Blue for $8/month.”
According to a report, there is a growing list of companies hitting pause on their Twitter advertising due to Musk’s purchase.
The impact is apparently already being felt at Twitter, as Musk tweeted that “Twitter has had a massive drop in revenue, due to activist groups pressuring advertisers” Thursday after many of the advertising announcements were made.
The Volkswagen Group, which owns the brands of AUDI, PORSCHE, AND BREIDE, advised them to suspend paid activity until further notice.
The companies join General Motors, which had previously said it would pause paying for advertising on Twitter while it evaluates the platform’s “new direction.” Toyota, another Tesla competitor, previously told CNN that it is “in discussions with key stakeholders and monitoring the situation” on Twitter.
Interpublic Group, an advertising buying giant, recommended its clients to stop advertising on the platform earlier this week.
Musk is working to prevent any advertiser exodus from his site – a meeting with the marketing community and advertising community before midterm elections
The pauses also come days ahead of the US midterm elections, as many civil society leaders worry that misinformation and other harmful content could spread on the platform and create disruption.
Musk is working to prevent any advertiser exodus from his site. Musk had a meeting in New York with the marketing and advertising community, according to a member of his inner circle.