The Musk-Twitter Merger After the Musk-Born-Infeld Decay: The Deal Tolerantly Closed

Musk, who already leads Tesla, SpaceX, The Boring Company, and Neuralink, is one of Twitter’s most visible users, with a large audience of devoted followers. The billionaire exec spontaneously shares earthshaking company plans, uncredited memes, and bizarre accusations. That’s in addition to responses that serve as a global tech support line for people who want everything from help with their electric car to politicians seeking satellite internet so they can keep citizens connected during a war.

Then Mr. Musk tore it all up. He said that he no longer wanted to go through with his purchase and went on a rant about the company that he had asked for help buying.

The same amount of debt that Mr. Musk offered in April could be more costly due to rising interest rates, economic uncertainty and inflation.

Musk was scheduled to be deposed on October 6th and 7th, after having moved his deposition from late September. He announced he’d honor the contract his lawyers negotiated after all just days before the deposition was to take place. That deposition was probably going to be uncomfortable; a judge found that Musk likely deleted Signal messages that were relevant to the case. The deposition was delayed as Musk and Twitter worked toward a deal; Musk even received a court order halting proceedings to allow the deal to close by October 28th.

The trial is scheduled to start on October 17th. The judge overseeing the case in Delaware wrote on Wednesday that the parties had not filed a clause to stay the case, as was reported by the WSJ. The trial is going to start on October 17 and I will press on. The trial is probably going to be put on hold given the current negotiations.

What Facebook can do to stop censoring? The official deal of Musk with Google under the “Gamma” campaign in June 2020

“Free speech is the cornerstone of a functioning democracy and is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated,” he said in the official deal announcement.

The message appeared to be intended to address concerns about Musk’s plans to promote free speech by reducing content moderation, which some advertisers believe will lead to more toxicity and drive away users.

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.

The feature of those websites is that they allow you to say and do things that are not permitted on other social media platforms. They are cauldrons of misinformation and abuse.

After agreeing to join the company’s board, he asked if it would be good to “unleash permanent bans, except for those that explicitly advocate violence, and those that have been blacklisted before.” He backtracked when he learned that he was going to join the company’s board.

Alex Jones was kicked off of the internet for abusive behavior, as well as a Georgia lawmaker who had an account suspended for false claims about COVID-19 vaccines.

Someone urged Musk to hire someone with a cultural/ political view who was able to lead enforcement. Masters is the Republican Senate candidate in Arizona who has been endorsed by Trump and has echoed his false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him.

Facebook may allow Trump and others to return if its ban on the former president ends in January 2023, which would set a precedent for other social networks.

“If Trump is replatformed on Twitter, it makes it easier for [Meta president of global affairs] Nick Clegg and [Meta CEO] Mark Zuckerberg to say, ‘Well, he’s already back on Twitter. We might as well let him back on Facebook,’” said Nicole Gill, executive director of Accountable Tech, a progressive advocacy group.

The Story of Musk and Agrawal in Silicon Valley: Why the Chinese-style super-apps need not catch on in the United States

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.

Calacanis, an investor who has invested in several companies, is working with Musk to manage the company as well as new products, and Krishnan is an general partner who has invested in several companies.

It’s good news for the billionaire, who has complained that the company’s costs are out of line with revenues and that they are overstaffed.

Costs and staff cuts are only two pieces of the equation. According to an investor presentation obtained by The New York Times, in the spring Musk told investors that he would double the revenue for the company by the year’s end, and had raised the estimate for users from 217 million to 934 million.

He might have little choice other than to find alternative sources of revenue because of the depressed state of the digital ad market and the changes he wants to make to content moderation.

Advertisers want to know that they are not going to be helping extremists or turning away potential customers by appearing with them,” he said.

Anyone’s guess, what he meant, as always. But this summer, Musk told Twitter staff that the company should emulate WeChat, the Chinese “super-app” that combines social media, messaging, payments, shopping, ride-hailing — basically, anything you might use your phone to do.

The Chinese-style super-APPS haven’t caught on in the United States despite other American tech companies trying this strategy.

Jay Sullivan, CEO and Chief Operating Officer at Twitter, apologizes for the day zero of Musk’s Twitter deal with the Suppression of Illegal Content

Since Musk suddenly proclaimed he actually wanted to buy Twitter again earlier this month, Twitter’s most internally visible leader has been Jay Sullivan, the general manager of consumer and revenue product. He was going to hold a listening session with his employees, but after receiving a calendar invite for a ” quick informal check in” call, the meeting was canceled without explanation.

Twitter’s Head of Safety and Integrity, Yoel Roth, has also remained at the company. He encouraged users to follow him on the social networking site because he said they could get the most accurate understanding of trust and safety on the platform.

According to Insider report, the executives got huge payouts for their trouble, including Agrawal getting $38.7 million, Segal getting $25.4 million, Gadde getting $12.5 million, and Personette getting $11.2 million.

Calacanis replied, “Day zero.” “Sharpen your blades boys.” 20 percent of the staff would leave voluntarily if they were required to return to offices, Calacanis wrote. Also, Calacanis told Musk, “Twitter CEO is my dream job.”

Twitter faces challenges to its free speech stance in court, as the Supreme Court agreed to take up two cases that will determine its liability for illegal content.

The Melting of Twitter Buyout: What Did Elon Musk Tell Us When he Here He Hehed To Twitter? A Guide for Folks and Folks About Twitter

This is a big story and has a lot of fast moving parts. It will likely be a story that lasts for a while over the next few months. We thought it was a good idea to put together a guide for our readers that can be updated as things continue. Because, like Elon, we ❤️ you.

A few days later, Twitter responded the way it always does: your argument is invalid, Twitter hasn’t breached its side of the deal, and so you can’t either.

In early September, Delaware Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick said that Musk’s side can include Zatko’s claims in its case but denied yet another effort to delay the trial. Even a delay of four weeks would risk harm to the site. She might be right as we learn more about how the brain drain is happening at the micro-blogging site.

Peter “Mudge” Zatko was fired from his job as a head of security at Twitter. In July, he filed a whistleblower report saying Twitter has hidden negligent security practices, misled federal regulators about its safety, and failed to properly estimate the number of bots on its platform. The allegations made by Zatko are sure to have a huge influence on the community and on the social media platform. Congress, for one, has already said it is investigating Zatko’s claims.

The subpoenas ahead of the trial have become something of a who’s who of the tech industry, with companies such as Larry Ellison, Jacky Closs and more. The fact that the man who was the CEO of the company pushed hard to convince Musk to buy it is likely to provide plenty of pertinent information.

We wouldn’t normally state it’s worth reading, but a legal filing that gets deep into the weeds of bot measurement procedures is. 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.

Source: https://www.theverge.com/23026874/elon-musk-twitter-buyout-news-updates

The Twitter All-Hands Meeting After Musk’s Bounds on a High-Dimensional Deal: What Are We Really Doing Here?

Twitter’s first all-hands meeting after Musk’s bid went public was a weird one. After serenading employees with Backstreet Boys and Aretha Franklin, the company said it would continue to evaluate the offer.

Employees told The Verge’s Alex Heath they were frustrated by the lack of a more detailed response. They’re concerned about the future of the social media platform, as well as the possibility of layoffs.

Musk has to convince shareholders that his offer is in their best interests. Otherwise, what are we really doing here?

Casey was right in positing that Twitter’s poison pill provisions may not be enough to stop Musk. But he also assumed that Musk would just continue to troll the company through his tweets.

The departures come just hours before a deadline set by a Delaware judge to finalize the deal on Friday. If there wasn’t an agreement, she was going to schedule a trial.

Although they came quickly, the major personnel moves had been widely expected and almost certainly are the first of many major changes the mercurial Tesla CEO will make.

In his first big move earlier on Thursday, Musk tried to soothe leery Twitter advertisers saying that he is buying the platform to help humanity and doesn’t want it to become a “free-for-all hellscape.”

He continued: “Social media can be used to spread misinformation, which can lead to more hate and division in our society.”

She said that having no content moderation is a bad thing for businesses, as it will make them lose advertisers and subscribers.

“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.

Twitter and Musk: The Deal With The Musk-Tel’s Deal With TeV to Be Built Your Own, or Should It Be Left As A Private Company

The Delaware Chancery Court ordered Friday’s deadline to close the deal. It is the latest step in a battle that began in April with Musk signing a deal to acquire Twitter, then tried to back out of it, leading Twitter to sue the Tesla CEO to force him to go through with the acquisition. 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.

The New York Stock Exchange said it would suspend trading in the shares of the company before Friday’s opening bell in hopes that it would be a private company.

The company’s chief customer officer, Sarah Personette, appeared to endorse Musk’s message to advertisers after 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.

There is no good reason for Musk to change the direction of his businesses because the weak economy and months of uncertainty about Musk’s potential takeover have taken a bite out of the company’s revenues.

In their place, Musk is now the CEO and sole director of the social platform, according to a securities filing, cementing his unique influence over one of the world’s most influential platforms at a time when he is weighing significant changes to how it operates. Musk is also the CEO of both Musk’s companies, and other companies at the same time.

The future of VP of operations Lindsey Iannucci is unknown at this time. There is no comment from Twitter about the current employment status of Caldwell, Sullivan and Berland.

Calacanis earlier this week tweeted that he was in New York on behalf of Twitter meeting with “the marketing and advertising community.” He has also tweeted questions to Twitter users about the platform’s subscription and bookmark features.

Apple, Facebook, Twitter, and the Internet: Steve Jobs’s Fate and Where He Got His $BmAdS$

I met Steve Jobs at the Apple headquarters in 1998 to hear his plan for reviving Apple. He had been its interim CEO for almost a year, after returning to the company that fired him over a decade earlier. He got me to his suite in One Infinite Loop where he sat down and wrote his solution to the company’s problems on a whiteboard. A workforce was rejuvenated by an inspiring ad campaign, he had a new product plan, and he had a new product.

Musk doesn’t need to look much farther than his successful enterprises to see the absurdity of his haste. When he took over Tesla in 2008, the company was already five years old. Musk came up with a brilliant plan to turn the company around—but it didn’t post an annual profit until 2020, 17 years after incorporation. Musk gets a lot ofSolvusoftSolvusoftSolvusoft’s recognition as a result of 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.

It does get worse, and this part isn’t Musk’s fault. When the economy slows down, companies spend less money on advertising. Even if Musk wasn’t doing anything to get in trouble with advertisers, the company was in trouble anyway. Musk’s company is a loose canon, which means that anyone looking to cut spend on advertising would probably prefer to do so first on the social network.

Now, Twitter did set up Tips — a way to send cash to people you like — but it doesn’t take a cut of that money. It takes a bit of Super Follows revenue but it is less than what Apple charges for in-app purchases.

This is internet, and there are forum drama. The blue users do not have to verify their identity, which is why an account with a blue check mark and the display name “Nintendo of America” posted a picture of Mario. To an unwary user, that might look sufficiently like the actual Nintendo account to do brand damage.

Musk does not mind. The beauty of this is that each account gets paid $8 after it’s verified, according to the user that took Tom Warren’s screenshot. Twitter keeps the money and suspends the account. It’s genius and I hope more folks do this. It’s free money for Twitter.” Musk himself replied to that user with a bullseye emoji, a smiley face wearing sunglasses, and a bag of money emoji.

I don’t think advertisers would want to come back to someone with that attitude if there was an economic downturn. The open question is whether users want to stay in that environment, which has just been updated with a new layer of fraud. Cuban said the new checkmarked users made his mentions miserable. People stay on the platform because Cuban’s thoughts make it less valuable, and because they want to drive him off.

Incidentally, Twitter is under a consent decree with the federal government requiring full documentation, in writing, of any foreseeable risks of “any product or service affecting commerce.” The changes to Twitter Blue rolled out less than two weeks after Musk bought Twitter. Do you think there’s proper documentation about its risks? Sounds like Twitter’s lawyers are worried!

And it’s risky debt to boot, B1 rated, which is “on the lower end of the junk rating spectrum,” says Wharton’s Roberts. There isn’t as large of a investor appetite for debt as there was four months ago. And when Moody’s rated Twitter’s debt, it cited Twitter’s governance — i.e., Elon Musk — as a major driver of risk.

Musk said that he bought a package of small ad packages to test the effectiveness of their products in Australia and Spain.

Musk did not explain the reason for sales in the filing. They’re his first sales of Tesla stock since early November, when he sold 19.5 million shares shortly after closing on his purchase of Twitter.

But the value of those shares have been dropping steadily. This year, the shares of electric car maker are down 55 percent. The drop in the value of Tesla shares is a major reason that he recently lost his title as the richest person on the planet.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about that time when Elon Musk bought a McLaren F1 for $1 million and then immediately drove it into a ditch while trying to show off to Peter Thiel. “You know, I had read all those stories about people who made money and bought sports cars and crashed them,” Musk said to Thiel, according to Max Chafkin’s The Contrarian. I didn’t get any insurance because I knew it couldn’t happen to me.

Man, look, after the debacle on Twitter Spaces last night, can we please stop pretending that this is anything but flailing? He crashed the McLaren and didn’t have insurance.

It is possible that Musk is selling some of his shares to make up for the decline in his stock price while he pays off his debts or that he is getting margin called on some of his loans as the price of his shares falls.