Trump & Musk: Acquiring Twitter and Buying a Micro-Blogging Service for $44.99 le$ $13.99 : A Mistake to Bin Trump?

This week after Musk said he wanted to move ahead with the deal, he said buying the micro-blogging service is an advantage to his creation of X, the everything app.

I think it was a mistake to ban Donald Trump and I will reverse the decision if I become the company’s owner, Musk said in May.

Relations between the two seem to have soured since the summer, with the men publicly trading barbs. After Trump called Musk a “bullsh*t artist” at a rally in July, Musk responded by tweet, writing, “I don’t hate the man, but it’s time for Trump to hang up his hat & sail into the sunset.”

After months spent trying to escape the deal he signed to acquire Twitter, Elon Musk now says he intends to complete the purchase after all. Musk told the SEC in a letter today that he would honor his deal to buy the company for the originally agreed price of $54.20. The company said it intended to complete the deal.

With such narrow chances of victory, pressing on in court could have seen Musk do more damage to the company it seemed increasingly likely he would end up owning. Ann Lipton,associate professor of business law and entrepreneurship at the university, said that that could have jeopardized his relationship with co- investors who had taken some financial pressure off him by agreeing to help finance his acquisition deal. Musk risked buying a company that was worse off than it was when he began the process, but doing it with less equity support, if this continued.

Twitter is a “keyhole view of what the future of the Internet will look like”: The case of Musk, the FDA, and the FOIA

The Federal Trade Commission is in charge of implementing a consent order with the company and hasn’t publicly disclosed an investigation. But its chair, Lina Khan, has told Congress in public testimony that if it’s determined Twitter executives were responsible for legal violations, the FTC “absolutely” would and “won’t hesitate” to hold those executives personally accountable.

The material that came to light before the trial in Delaware did not offer much support to the argument. “He knows that his best claim is fraud, but they’ve gotten the evidence from Twitter, and there’s nothing that looks like fraud here,” Miller says. They have run out of cards to play.

Musk’s decision to fold may also have been influenced by the potential for the trial to damage him personally. Theentrepreneur watched the internet chew over a lot of his text messages with major figures in Silicon Valley. Miller says that this week he faced what would be a very embarrassing deposition.

He told employees at the meeting that the platform should allow all legal speech, even if it’s someone he doesn’t want saying something they don’t think is right. He also sent a private text to Antonio Gracias telling him that free speech mattered more when it was someone he

It’s clear that advertisers would be spooked by the new loosened content moderation on the platform, as they find their brand safety tools to be lacking compared with other social platforms.

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.”

“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).

That could mean lifting bans on conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who was kicked off for abusive behavior in 2018; Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., whose account was suspended in January for tweeting misleading and false claims about COVID-19 vaccines; and 2020 election deniers like Michael Flynn, Sidney Powell and Mike Lindell, who were all banned in early 2021.

The person urged Musk to hire “someone who has a savvy cultural/political view” to lead enforcement, suggesting “a Blake Masters type.” Masters, the Republican Senate candidate in Arizona, has parroted false claims that the election of 2020 was stolen from him, after he was endorsed by Trump.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Trump’s Twitter Contagion isn’t the Same as Twitter’s AmeriCorp

Allowing Trump and others to come back could have implications for other social networks as Facebook considers reinstating the former president when its own ban on him expires in January.

Musk’s texts reveal that an initially cautiously friendly relationship between the two men when Musk first invested quickly soured after Agrawal told Musk that his tweets criticizing the platform were “not helping me make Twitter better.”

Musk tweeted late Friday that there was no choice but to cut jobs “when the company is losing over $4M/day.” He didn’t give any information on the daily losses or the amount of pay that was offered to employees who lost their jobs.

It’s good news for the billionaire who has complained that the company is overstaffed and its costs don’t always correlate with revenues.

Costs and staff cuts are the only two things that count. In the spring, Musk pitched investors that he would quintuple Twitter’s annual revenue to $26.4 billion by 2028 and attract 931 million users by that same year, up from 217 million at the end of 2021, according to an investor presentation obtained by The New York Times.

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.

The Deal Between Twitter and Facebook: Musk and the American tech companies are taking the lead in understanding the Pelosi attack. Musk’s Twitter Tweets on Wednesday night

Everyone’s guess is what he meant. In the summer, Musk told his employees that they should try out a Chinese “super-app” called “WeNote”, that combines social media, messaging, payments, shopping, ride-sharing, and more, in one place.

In the United States, Chinese-style super-apps aren’t catching on, despite attempts by American tech companies.

It is not clear which agencies may be carrying out the probe, and Twitter did not identify what specific actions by Musk US officials may be investigating. Authorities are investigating Musk’s “conduct” linked to the deal.

The company filed a court claim saying that Musk’s legal team failed to produce draft communications to the Securities and Exchange Commission, as well as a presentation to the Federal Trade Commission regarding whether or not Musk can walk away from the deal.

The FTC declined to comment on whether Twitter has submitted any compliance notices since Musk took over the company. Twitter, which laid off a substantial amount of its public relations team, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The separation agreement that Musk’s team said Zatko was instructed to burn were not in fact in fact, according to a separate filing on Thursday. Zatko destroyed his notebooks on his own.

Take Musk’s last 24 hours on the platform for example: The billionaire gave credence to a fringe conspiracy theory about the brutal attack on Paul Pelosi. Musk criticized the media outlets that reported on his irresponsible behavior. He trolled The New York Times in one tweet and chastised The Guardian as a “far left wing propaganda machine” in another.

Yildirim said that, unlike Facebook, Twitter has not been good at targeting advertising to what users want to see. Musk’s message suggests he wants to fix that, she said.

Twitter’s Chief Customer Officer Sarah Personette responded to Musk’s Thursday tweet saying that she had a “great discussion” with Musk on Wednesday. “Our continued commitment to brand safety for advertisers remained unchanged,” Personette said. Looking forward to the future!

Insider Intelligence’s Jasmine Enberg said that Musk has reason to avoid a major restructuring of his company because it will hurt the revenue of the company, months of confusion surrounding Musk’s plan and the fact that there is a weak economy.

Musk also reiterated in the letter a lofty earlier statement he had made that the Twitter acquisition is not meant to be a money-making venture for him.

Musk bought the company for $44 billion, but it turned out to be a platform used by some of the most powerful people on the planet.

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.

The Battle of Twitter: The CEO of a Big Crunch Company, Elon Musk, and the Higgs Billionaire Hector Yildirim

The parties were given until October 28 to reach a deal, or face a new trial.

After six months of wrangling, it’s all over: Elon Musk owns Twitter. How did that happen? We will recount every step of the process, including how the billionaire is now in control of the company, and how several former executives were escorted from the building waiting for first updates from their new boss.

The major personnel moves had been expected, and are likely to be the first of many changes the maverick CEO will make.

About the same time, he used Twitter to criticize Gadde, the company’s top lawyer. A wave of harassment was experienced by Gadde from other accounts. For Gadde, an 11-year Twitter employee who also heads public policy and safety, the harassment included racist and misogynistic attacks, in addition to calls for Musk to fire her. The harassment began again on Thursday when she was fired.

He continued: “Social media can splinter into far right wing and far left wing echo chambers in order to generate more hate and divide our society.”

She said having no moderation is a problem for business and that could hurt the company’s advertisers and subscribers.

Yildirim stated that consumers are bombarded with things they do not desire to hear, and that the platform takes no responsibility.

Snapchat shuts down Twitter: Musk’s “Sink in” may be the best, Isaacson’s authorized biographer says he isn’t afraid of breaking the news

But Musk has been signaling that the deal is going through. He strolled into the company’s San Francisco headquarters Wednesday, carried a porcelain sink in his hand, and then wrote on his account that “EnteringTwitter HQ let that sink in!”

And overnight the New York Stock Exchange notified investors that it will suspend trading in shares of Twitter before the opening bell Friday in anticipation of the company going private under Musk.

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.

Thursday’s note shows advertisers a new emphasis on revenue, especially if it is related to providing more “relevant ads” that use users’ personal information.

A version of this article first appeared in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter. Sign up for the daily digest and you will get updates on the changing media landscape.

Not only has Musk messed up the information environment he now reigns over, he is also working to dismantle the little infrastructure built to help users sift through the daily chaos. The blue verified badges of public figures and institutions are at risk if they don’t pay, according to recent news reports.

Business stories that include charging for verified badges might be first seen as a story. The move will have important ramifications on the information landscape. Most notably, it will make it much more difficult for users to distinguish from authentic and inauthentic accounts.

If the company were to strip current verified users of blue checks — something that hasn’t happened — that could exacerbate disinformation on the platform during Tuesday’s midterm elections.

The best way to save social networks, the internet, civil discourse, democracy, email and reduce hacking would be to authenticating users, according to Walter Isaacson, Musk’s authorized biographer.

A class-action lawsuit against the former employees of a Tesla company for violation of the WARN Act and the California workplace compensation law (WARN vs. California)

The former employees laid off in response to a mass firing at the company have filed a class-action suit against the company.

CNN obtained a copy of an email that said if your employment does not change, you’ll receive a notification via email. You will receive an email with the next steps if your employment is impacted.

The email said that the company’s offices will be temporarily closed and all badges will be suspended because of safety concerns.

The lawsuit claims that some of the employees who were laid off were in violation of the WARN Act.

The lawsuit alleges that the workers were not given enough notice of their firing in accordance with both the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) and California WARN Act. Mass firings are required if companies give employees at least 60 days of advance notice.

The suit was filed in US District Court in San Francisco and names five workers as plaintiffs. The suit notes that one of the plaintiffs named had already been fired at the time of filing, while three others had been locked out of company accounts — an action presumed to indicate they will soon be formally terminated.

This is not the first time Musk’s management style has led to class-action lawsuits. The two ex-employees at Tesla sued the company for the same WARN Act violation.

Twitter Disruption after the Musk Switch-Out of Kathy Griffin and Valerie Bertinelli: Bringing Back the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

“Any account without specifying ‘parody’ may be permanently suspended,” Musk wrote. While Twitter previously issued warnings before suspensions, now that it is rolling out “widespread verification, there will be no warning.”

Comedian Kathy Griffin had her account suspended Sunday after she switched her screen name to Musk. She told a Bloomberg reporter that she had also used his profile photo.

Not all of the content moderators were let go? Lol,” Griffin joked afterward on Mastodon, an alternative social media platform where she set up an account last week.

Actor Valerie Bertinelli had similarly appropriated Musk’s screen name — posting a series of tweets in support of Democratic candidates on Saturday before switching back to her true name. “Okey dokey.” I have had a good time. and I think I made my point,” she tweeted afterwards.

There was no end to the disruption in sight on Friday. A gray ” Official” badges will be reintroduced for some accounts to help confirm their identities. Some fake accounts posing as brands such as Nintendo and Eli Lilly were able to create trouble for the micro-messaging service this week. Musk was able to offer these accounts because he decided to rush ahead and offer a blue check mark to any account holder willing to pay $8 a month.

It said that the service would be offered in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK. It was not available on Sunday and there was no indication as to when it would go live. A Twitter employ, Esther Crawford, told The Associated Press it is coming “soon but it hasn’t launched yet.”

Following layoffs that began Friday that affected half of the company’s 7,500 employees, many users have begun to migrate from the platform to Counter Social and other alternatives. They believe a breakdown of moderation and verification could cause the internet to become a free-for-all on what has been the main conduit for reliable communications.

YoelRoth, the head of safety and integrity atTwitter, addressed such concerns on Friday. He said the front-line moderation staff was most affected by the job cuts.

Twitter, the FTC, and the Public Interest: Monitoring the Misleading Footprints of Musk’s Undertaken Responsibility under the Twitter Consent Order

If a violation is proven, Musk will face serious personal liability, as he stumbles through a lot of business and content moderation headaches, most of which have been his own fault.

There are other more substantive regulatory obligations that are coming into question. They include requirements that Twitter produce written privacy assessments of any new “product, service or practice” — or when Twitter updates those things — that could affect user data or put it at risk.

Under Twitter’s latest FTC consent order, which was implemented this year, Twitter must submit a sworn compliance notice to the regulator within 14 days of any such change. The compliance notice is intended both to advise the FTC of major changes at the company as well as a commitment that it will continue to comply with the order, according to David Vladeck, a former senior FTC official and a law professor at Georgetown University.

Alex Spiro said that they were in dialogue with the FTC and would work closely with the agency to make sure we were in compliance.

“The chaos there is something the FTC is going to be worried about,” said Vladeck, “because there were serious deficiencies which led to the consent order in the first place, and the FTC is going to want to make sure they’re doing what they’re supposed to do.”

CNN viewed a message on Slack that warned colleagues of Musk attempting to put responsibility for certifying FTC compliance onto individual engineers at the company.

Matt Blaze, a professor of computer science and law at Georgetown University, urged Twitter employees to seek professional legal counsel “before signing anything or making any statement to regulators.”

The FTC has increasingly signaled it could seek to hold individual executives personally accountable if they’re found to have been responsible for a company’s violations, naming them in future orders and imposing binding requirements on their future conduct, even if they leave the company. The FTC imposed sanctions on the CEO of Drizly after showing its willingness to do so.

The FTC said that the CEO is not above the law and must follow the consent decree. The revised consent order provides us with new tools to ensure compliance.

Twitter is not the same as Facebook: why the Musk social network went nuts after the launch of its paid verification service, which has been completely recanceled two days after its launch

In the past week alone, one of the world’s most influential social networks has laid off half its workforce; alienated powerful advertisers; blown up key aspects of its product, then repeatedly launched and un-launched other features aimed at compensating for it; and witnessed an exodus of senior executives.

The menu option to sign up for the paid subscription service was mysteriously removed from the app on Friday just two days after its official launch, the only place where the add-on had been offered. It was not immediately clear when the company might restore the offering.

Hours after the gray badges launched on Wednesday as a way to help users differentiate legitimate celebrity and branded accounts from accounts that had merely paid for a blue check mark, Musk abruptly canceled the feature, forcing subordinates to explain the reversal.

The account’s very next tweet, a day and nine hours later, said exactly the opposite: “To combat impersonation, we’ve added an ‘Official’ label to some accounts.”

The rocky launch of the paid verification feature caused much criticism from misinformation experts who warned it would make identifying trustworthy information much more difficult during the critical period following the US midterm elections. Some of Musk’s high-powered users had a lot of negative feedback.

“@elonmusk, from one entrepreneur to another, for when you have your customer service hat on. Mark Cuban said he had spent too much time muting all the newly purchased checkmark statements to make them useful again.

Cuban believes that there is a decision to be made. “Stick with the new Twitter that democratizes every tweet by paid accounts and puts the onus on all users to curate for themselves. Or make it possible to have a back up to the popular micro-blogging site. One makes Twitter time and information efficient. The other is not good.

Musk hosted an event for advertisers on the platform this week and pleaded with brands to keep using it, even after a number of companies paused their ads. Musk attempted to be magnanimous and accept responsibility for the company’s performance.

According to an internal Slack message posted by a Twitter employee and viewed by CNN, Musk has shown little fear of the FTC regulators overseeing the company’s multiple, legally binding consent agreements committing it to maintaining a robust cybersecurity program and producing written privacy impact reports before launching any new products or services, a requirement that could cover Twitter Blue.