How did Musk and Twitter get their micro-blogging site? The case of Musk, a lawsuit filed in the U.S. Supreme Court
A judge gave Musk and Twitter until October 28 to close their deal, ending the lengthy legal battle and avoiding a high-profile trial. What would that look like if Musk assumed control of the micro-blogging site? He has given hints, but also left a lot of unanswered questions.
The messages are part of a series of court filings that reveal more about the battle between Musk and the SEC over whether he should follow through with his plan to buy a social networking site. The case of Musk and twitter is due in court.
“I’m not seeing anything we didn’t know already that’s legally relevant. “There are some damning things in there, but it was already public, so it didn’t really have to be argued about,” said business law expert Ann Lipton of Tulane University.
Musk changed his filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission to say that he wouldn’t be a passive player in the company’s affairs. Gone was the language that he would restrict his holdings to just 14.0 percent of the company. This was the first clue he may try something more significant than simply serving on the board.
“Frankly, I hate doing mgmt (management) stuff. I don’t believe in having anyone be the boss of everyone. But I love helping solve technical/product design problems,” wrote the cofounder of six companies.
Twitter is not a “free-for-all-hellscape”: Musk’s public opinion against Twitter could be dissipated
Earlier this week, Musk visited Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters to meet with employees. He also posted an open letter to Twitter advertisers, saying he doesn’t want the platform to become a “free-for-all-hellscape where anything can be said with no consequences.”
The cache of text messages is revealing, but legal experts who are watching the case closely say there’s more entertainment value than new legal evidence.
The text messages support the idea that his interest in the platform was based on its role in public debate and free speech issues, not because he thought he could make the company profitable, Lipton said.
At Tuesday’s hearing, Twitter’s attorneys said Musk and his financial adviser destroyed evidence about why Musk wanted to pull out of the deal, and asked the judge to sanction Musk.
The company’s data scientists confirmed the estimates of how many people are on the platform, which is important to Musk’s argument.
On October 4th, a new offer letter was sent by Musk to buy Twitter at the original price of $54.20 a share. That would mean, essentially, that after all this, and without going to trial, Musk is willing to just give up and go ahead with the acquisition.
A deposition is likely to make things even more messy for Musk. It could highlight “extremely inconsistent statements” that have the potential to create more legal issues, Eric Talley, a law professor at Columbia University, previously told The Verge.
The Musk-owned Twitter of the Delaware Chancery Court: Focusing on the Future of the Digital Town Square and the Return of President Donald Trump
The trial is scheduled to begin on October 17th. “The parties have not filed a stipulation to stay this action, nor has any party moved for a stay,” the Delaware Chancery Court judge overseeing the case, Kathaleen McCormick, wrote on Wednesday as reported by the Wall Street Journal. “I, therefore, continue to press on toward our trial set to begin on October 17.” The trial is almost certain to be put on hold, given the current negotiations.
Musk also pledged to “defeat the spam bots or die trying,” referring to the fake and scam accounts that are often especially active in the replies to his tweets and those of others with large followings on the platform.
“Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated,” he said in the official deal announcement.
Such a move could have ripples across the social media landscape. Twitter, although smaller than many of its social media rivals, has sometimes acted as a model for how the industry handles problematic content, including when it was the first to ban then-President Trump following the January 6 Capitol riot.
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. After the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, Twitter permanently banned Trump for breaking its rules against inciting violence.
“Would be great to unwind permanent bans, except for spam accounts and those that explicitly advocate violence,” he texted Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal shortly after agreeing to join the company’s board (a decision he soon backtracked).
Alex Jones, who was kicked off for abusive behavior in 2018, may be able to have his ban lifted.
Someone urged Musk to hire someone with a political and cultural view who could lead enforcement. The Senate candidate in Arizona who is endorsed by Trump has echoed claims that the election was stolen from him.
Twitter Blue: The Future of a Social Network after the Trump-Dorsey Re-Puzzle Annihilation
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’s easier for Mark and Nick to explain that Trump is already back on Twitter if he’s replatformed. Nicole Gill, executive director of Accountable Tech, said that they might as well let him back on Facebook.
Musk is also expected to shake things up internally at Twitter. Less than 12 months after succeeding Jack Dorsey in the role of CEO, Agrawal will most likely head for the exit with a $42 million payoff.
Text messages later revealed in court appear to show that Musk clashed with Agrawal immediately before he made a bid for the company.
That is great news for the billionaire, who has accused the company of overstaffing and said its costs are outstrip its revenues.
It’s possible that the future of a social networking website could beTwitter Blue. Musk thinks so. He thinks he can double the revenue of the company by the year 2028, which will make it a $10 billion business. That also includes huge user growth, Musk estimated Twitter could have over one billion users in twenty five years. That’s a big jump from the company’s current crop of 217 million users.
The Twitter Investigation into the Musk-Twissell Social Media Co-AdS$_2+1$ Azimuthal Anomaly
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 aren’t going to be associated with things that turn off potential customers, that they’re not going to be supporting extremists, and that’s why they want to know that,” he said.
Musk has said that he wants to create an app called “X, the everything app.” This is a reference to China’s WeChat app, which has grown to encompass a wide range of businesses since it started as a messaging platform. Musk told employees in June that they lived on the platform in China. “If we can recreate that with Twitter, we’ll be a great success.”
The Chinese-style super-apps that have been tried by other American tech companies haven’t caught on in the US.
The probe is not clear which agencies will be carrying it out, and where it will be looking at. Twitter’s filing merely said authorities are looking into Musk’s “conduct” linked to the deal.
The company’s court filing elsewhere accused Musk’s legal team of failing to produce draft communications with the Securities and Exchange Commission and a slide presentation to the Federal Trade Commission as part of the two sides’ ongoing litigation over whether Musk can walk away from the deal.
Spiro said in a statement that the executives of the social networking site are under federal investigation. The misdirection was sent to find out which of the various investigations they are under.
In a separate filing on Thursday, Twitter also maintained that it did not instruct Zatko to burn several notebooks as part of a separation agreement, as Musk’s team had claimed in a filing earlier this month. The notebooks of Zatko were destroyed by him.
The acquisition also promises to extend Musk’s influence. The billionaire already has stakes in companies that are developing cars, rockets, robots and satellite internet as well as more experimental ventures such as brain implants. He now has control of a social media platform that affects how people communicate and get their news.
After the acquisition agreement was signed, Musk raised concerns about the availability of fake accounts on TWA and subsequently tried to end the deal.
A Fast-moving Report on Elon’s Absence of the CEO of the Micro-Messaging Service, or Why he Has Ghosted Us
The departures are happening shortly before the deadline set by the Delaware judge. If an agreement was not reached, she would schedule a trial.
Many employees of the micro-messaging service have recently noted the absence of their CEO, who Musk soured on after the two initially started talking about Musk joining the board. One current employee of the social media network said that Argawal has been completely absent for weeks. “He has ghosted us,” said another. According to a new analysis, there are thousands of identical comments on both the blind and slack sections of the social network.
The execs received handsome payouts, according to Insider, with Agrawal getting $38.7 million, Segal getting $25.4 million, and Personette getting $11.2 million.
There is a lot of fast- moving parts in this huge story. It’s also a story that will likely stretch out over the next few months, maybe even longer. So we thought we’d put together a guide for you, our readers, that can be updated as things continue to unfold. Because, like Elon, we ❤️ you.
What Has Happened to Twitter After Musk Made Sense Of It? The First All-Hands Meeting That Has Been Given To Twitter and Why Has it Been Found?
A few days later,tweet responded the same way it always does: your argument is invalid, they haven’t broken any laws, and you can’t either.
The subpoenas ahead of the trial have become a who’s who of the tech industry, including Dorsey, Larry Ellison, Marc Andreessen, Tesla, Keith Rabois, and many others. Dorsey was a surprise but seems likely to have plenty of pertinent information, given both his tenure as Twitter CEO and the fact that Dorsey reportedly pushed hard to convince Musk to buy the company in the first place.
We wouldn’t normally tell you it’s worth reading a 162-page legal filing that gets deep into the weeds of bot measurement procedures. But this case has been filled with abnormally spicy legal fighting, much of which was clearly written to be read by a wide audience. It’s a good yarn.
The first all-hands meeting after Musk went public was weird. The company will continue to evaluate the offer after serenading employees with several famous people.
Employees told The Verge’s Alex Heath they were frustrated by the lack of a more detailed response. They are concerned about the future of social media and the possibility of layoffs.
But even a free speech maximalist like Musk needs to convince shareholders that his buyout offer is in their financial self-interest. What are we doing here?
The CEO of Twitter Takes Control of Twitter and Immediately-ousts-Top-Executive Executives: Revisiting the Harassing Tweets of a Top Lawyer
Although they came quickly, the big personnel changes were expected and will be the first of many changes the CEO will make.
About the same time, he used Twitter to criticize Gadde, the company’s top lawyer. A wave of harassment of Gadde came from his other accounts. Racist and misogynistic attacks as well as calls for Musk to fire her, were included in the harassment faced by Gadde, an 11-year veteran of the social media company. On Thursday, after she was fired, the harassing tweets lit up once again.
He continued: “There is currently great danger that social media will splinter into far right wing and far left wing echo chambers that generate more hate and divide our society.”
The note is a shift from Musk’s position that Twitter is unfairly infringing on free speech rights by blocking misinformation or graphic content, said Pinar Yildirim, associate professor of marketing at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.
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.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/27/1132153277/elon-musk-takes-control-of-twitter-and-immediately-ousts-top-executives
The Twitter Address of Musk’s “Chief Twit”, or Why he Couldn’t Stop Talking About Twitter at the LHC
But Musk has been signaling that the deal is going through. He showed up at the company’s San Francisco headquarters on Wednesday carrying a porcelain sink and changed his profile on the social networking website to “chief twit”.
The New York Stock Exchange informed investors that they will suspend trading in the shares of the company prior to the opening bell on Friday in anticipation of Musk taking the company private.
Sarah Personette said she had a “great discussion” with Musk on Wednesday and appeared to endorse his Thursday message to advertisers.
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.
Because of the weak economy, months of uncertainty surrounding Musk’s proposed takeover, and changing consumer behaviors, Insider Intelligence analyst Jasmine Enberg believes that Musk has good reason to ignore a massive change in his ad business at this time.