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Elon Musk: Discussion Thread

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Maybe free some people in jail for weed here too? <a href="https://t.co/AYo0ZC79lZ">pic.twitter.com/AYo0ZC79lZ</a></p>— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1553747872373522432?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 31, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
 
Elon Musk sells $6.9bn of Tesla shares as Twitter lawsuit looms

Tesla boss Elon Musk has sold another 7.92 million shares in the electric car maker, worth around $6.88bn (£5.7bn).

The sales took place after the firm's annual shareholder meeting last week, regulatory filings show.

Mr Musk says he needs the money in case he is forced to buy Twitter for $44bn.

The multi-billionaire is currently embroiled in a legal battle with the social media platform after saying last month he would pull out of a deal to buy it.

The latest transactions were carried out on 5, 8 and 9 August, according to six filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

After news of the share sale was made public Mr Musk responded to a tweet asking whether he had finished selling Tesla shares with "yes", adding that he needed the money in case he was forced to buy Twitter and was unable to secure some of the funding for the deal.

"It is important to avoid an emergency sale of Tesla stock," he said.

Asked by another user whether he would buy Tesla shares again if the Twitter takeover does not take place Mr Musk also responded "yes".

In July, Mr Musk said he planned to walk away from his bid to buy Twitter, prompting the company to sue him.

The world's richest person has accused the company of withholding information about fake accounts.

Last month, a US judge ruled that Twitter's lawsuit against Mr Musk should go to trial in October.

Twitter hopes that the court will order Mr Musk to complete the takeover at the agreed price of $54.20 per share.

Mr Musk has countersued Twitter, although the details of that lawsuit have not been made public.

Also in July, Twitter said that between April and June it had spent $33m on the proposed deal.

It also said its number of monthly daily users had risen to 237m - but it reported a net loss of $270m, which was worse than expected.

Meanwhile, Tesla revealed last month that it had offloaded 75% of its Bitcoin, which was worth about $2bn at the end of 2021.

The company made waves last year when it revealed a major investment in in the world's biggest cryptocurrency.

Tesla said it bought traditional currencies with the $936m proceeds of its Bitcoin sales.

BBC
 
Elon Musk has said he is not going to buy Manchester United, after earlier tweeting that he wanted to take over the Premier League club.

The Tesla boss, who has a history of making irreverent tweets, tweeted on Wednesday: "I'm buying Manchester United ur welcome."

But when asked on Twitter if he was serious he replied: "No, this is a long-running joke on Twitter. I'm not buying any sports teams."

Musk's initial tweet would have caused a frisson of excitement amongst United fans.

Many have protested in recent years against the American Glazer family, who bought the club in 2005, due to the team's struggles on the pitch.

The anti-Glazer movement gained momentum last year after United were involved in a failed attempt to form a breakaway European Super League.

Manchester United have been champions of England a record 20 times and have won the European Cup, the most prestigious club competition in the global game, three times.

But disquiet among fans as to how the club has been run has been exacerbated by the team's poor start to this season, losing the first two games including last Saturday's 4-0 humiliation by Brentford.

SKY

As of Tuesday's close, the football club had a market capitalisation of $2.08bn.
 
New Delhi: Hours after a whistleblower claimed that the Indian government forced Twitter to put a government agent on its payroll, Elon Musk, in his usual cryptic ways, shared a post on the social media platform which appears to allude to the incident.

"Give a little whistle," read the post shared by the Tesla CEO, who is currently engaged in a heated legal fight with Twitter to walk away from his $44 billion deal for the social media company.

Peiter 'Mudge' Zatko, the whistleblower who a former Twitter Inc security chief, raised the issue about the Indian government with the US Securities and Exchange Commission among other security lapse claims at Twitter, Reuters reported.

Recently, Elon Musk had challenged Twitter's Chief Executive Officer Parag Agrawal to a public debate about the percentage of bots on the social media platform.

In an ongoing legal battle, that finds more than an occasional mention on Twitter by Mr Musk, the latter has claimed that he was hoodwinked into signing a $44 billion agreement to buy the company.

A company source told Reuters that the allegations about the India government had surfaced previously within Twitter.

Twitter has rubbished the claim, calling it a "false narrative" about their privacy and data security practices. A spokesperson said that the allegation was "riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies and lacks important context".

NDTV
 
WILMINGTON, Del., Aug 29 (Reuters) - Elon Musk has subpoenaed a Twitter Inc (TWTR.N) whistleblower, seeking documents and communications on the company's spam and alleged security vulnerabilities as the billionaire battles to end his agreement to buy Twitter for $44 billion, according to a court filing on Monday.

Musk sought information from whistleblower Peiter Zatko mostly about the way Twitter measures spam accounts. Musk has said he is walking away from the deal for the company because Twitter misled him and regulators about the true number of spam or bot accounts on the microblogging platform.

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But Musk also sought documents and communications about alleged attempts to hide security weaknesses, compliance with a 2011 Federal Trade Commission agreement and "Twitter's engagement in any unlawful activity."

A spokesman for Twitter declined to comment.

A famed hacker widely known as "Mudge," Zatko ended a stint as the head of Twitter's security earlier this year, and said in his whistleblower complaint that became public last week that the company falsely claimed it had a solid security plan. read more

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The information that Musk obtains from Zatko might lay the groundwork for the Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) chief executive to introduce new fraud claims in his legal battle with Twitter, according to Ann Lipton, a professor at Tulane University Law School.

However, she said it was unclear if the judge in the Twitter litigation would allow Musk to introduce those claims given the tight schedule for the case and because Musk waived due diligence before signing the deal contract.

A Twitter attorney said at a court hearing last week that Musk's focus on spam as a way to end his agreement to buy the company was "legally irrelevant" because Twitter always said its spam counts were only estimates, not binding representations.

The two sides have sued each other and are heading to a five-day trial on Oct. 17. Musk wants out of the deal and Twitter is asking Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick of the Delaware Court of Chancery to order him to buy the company for the agreed $54.20 per share.

Twitter's stock ended down 1% at $40.04 on Monday in New York.

Reuters
 
Twitter's shareholders have voted to approve a deal with Elon Musk to buy the company for $44bn (£38bn).

The decision was made in a short conference call with investors from the company's San Francisco headquarters.

It means Twitter will now try to force Elon Musk to buy the company in the courts.

The meeting followed explosive testimony from Twitter's former head of security Peiter Zatko in front of the US Senate.

In April, Twitter agreed to sell the company to the world's richest person, Elon Musk.

However, the deal soured after Mr Musk alleged he was misled by Twitter about the number of spam and bot accounts on the platform.

He said he no longer wished to purchase the company in May, but Twitter argues that Mr Musk cannot back out of the deal.

BBC
 
<b>Elon Musk is planning to buy social media company Twitter for his original offer price.</b>

The world's richest man is proposing to go ahead with purchasing the platform for $54.20 per share, a total value of $44bn (£38.4bn), following months of legal battles.

Earlier, trading in Twitter shares was halted as the stock spiked following reports the deal was back on. The shares had been up by nearly 13% at $47.93 before trading was paused.

Mr Musk offered to stick to the original deal in a letter to Twitter, he disclosed in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday.

The filing said he'll complete deal provided he gets the debt financing ne needs and provided the Delaware Court of Chancery, where he was due to appear in less than two weeks, throws out the lawsuit.

In a letter from Musk's lawyers, he said: "Musk Parties intend to proceed to closing of the transaction... and adjourn the trial and all other proceedings."

Twitter and Mr Musk were due to be in court later this month as the company attempted to hold Mr Musk to his original offer, made in April.

"This is a clear sign that Musk recognised heading into Delaware Court that the chances of winning versus Twitter board was highly unlikely and this $44bn deal was going to be completed one way or another," said Dan Ives, analyst at investment firm Wedbush.

Mr Musk, the Tesla CEO, had wanted to back out of the deal over the number of bot accounts on the platform.

He said it was above Twitter's estimate of 5% of users and claimed in July that meant he could exit the deal.

Bots are automated accounts whose existence can lead to an overestimation of how many humans use the website. Knowing the number of genuine users is important for advertising sales and the overall value of the platform.

The takeover deal had received approval from Twitter shareholders last month.

More than $16bn worth of Tesla shares had been exchanged as of midday New York time on Tuesday resulting in a stock value plunge which rebounded in afternoon trading.

The proposal by Mr Musk may end months of turbulent litigation which was heading into a face-off in Delaware's Court of Chancery on 17 October.

Legal disputes involving senior Twitter executives and texts from Mr Musk were aired which have hurt Twitter's reputation and company morale.

"I am sitting on 2023 company wide strategy readouts and I guess we are going to collectively ignore what's going on", Rumman Chowdhury, a director for the Machine Learning Ethics, Transparency and Accountability at Twitter said on the platform on Tuesday.

In the past Mr Musk has taken to Twitter to stir controversy, such as suggesting a peace plan for the Ukraine-Russia war that drew swift condemnation from Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Mr Musk also said he would overturn former president Donald Trump's ban from the site.

According to text messages that came to light during the litigation, Mr Musk planned to change the platform by battling spam by verifying accounts; hosting money transfers, and wanted to create Twitter subscriptions instead of relying on advertising.

Responding to the letter from Mr Musk, Twitter said: "We received the letter from the Musk parties which they have filed with the SEC. The intention of the company is to close the transaction at $54.20 per share."

But the troubles are not over for Mr Musk. He must now raise the money he needs to buy Twitter. Stock in Tesla, the company electric car company he is the CEO of, has been under pressure as investors fear he may sell shares to fund the Twitter purchase.

https://news.sky.com/story/trading-...inal-offer-price-12712119?dcmp=snt-sf-twitter
 
Musk, Twitter could reach deal to end court battle, close buyout soon - source
By Tom Hals and Anirban Sen

WILMINGTON, Del., Oct 5 (Reuters) - Elon Musk and Twitter Inc (TWTR.N) may reach an agreement to end their litigation in coming days, clearing the way for the world's richest person to close his $44 billion deal for the social media firm, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Musk, who is also chief executive officer of electric car maker Tesla Inc (TSLA.O), proposed to Twitter late on Monday he would change course and abide by his April agreement to buy the company for $54.20 per share, if Twitter dropped its litigation against him.

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In their effort to end the litigation, the two sides agreed to postpone the billionaire's deposition in court scheduled for Thursday, the source said on Wednesday, but negotiations are continuing with a full resolution expected to take more time.

However, Twitter's legal team was yet to accept any agreement and Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick, the judge on Delaware's Court of Chancery, earlier in the day said she was preparing for the looming trial.

"The parties have not filed a stipulation to stay this action, nor has any party moved for a stay. I, therefore, continue to press on toward our trial set to begin on Oct. 17, 2022," McCormick wrote in a Wednesday court filing.

Musk's proposal on Monday included a condition that the deal closing was pending the receipt of debt financing. The potential agreement would likely remove that condition, said the source, who requested anonymity as the discussions are confidential.

Twitter's legal team and lawyers for Musk updated the judge on Tuesday with their attempts to overcome mutual distrust and find a process for closing the deal.

Two firms that were interested in partly financing the deal, Apollo Global Management Inc (APO.N) and Sixth Street Partners, had ended talks to provide up to a combined $1 billion, two sources told Reuters.

An attorney representing a proposed class action against Musk on behalf of Twitter shareholders said in a letter to McCormick that Musk should be required to make a "substantial deposit" in case he again reneges on his commitment to close. He should also be liable for interest delaying the closing of the deal, said the letter from attorney Michael Hanrahan.

Representatives of Musk and Twitter held several unsuccessful talks in recent weeks about a possible price cut to his $44 billion deal to buy the social media platform before he reversed course on Monday, the New York Times reported on Wednesday.

Musk initially sought a discount of as much as 30%, according to the report, which was later narrowed to about 10% and ultimately rejected by Twitter.

A DISTRACTION

It is not clear what led the Musk legal team to offer to settle, but his scheduled deposition on Thursday in Austin, Texas, was expected to include some tough questioning, which could have given Twitter leverage in talks to close the deal.

Shares of Twitter closed 1.3% lower at $51.30 on Wednesday. The stock on Tuesday hit its highest level since Musk and Twitter agreed in April that he would buy the company for $54.20 per share.

Tesla stock ended down 3.5% on Wednesday as investors worry that Musk may have to sell more shares in the electric carmaker to fund the Twitter deal and that Twitter could be a distraction for the entrepreneur.

Musk sold $15.4 billion worth of Tesla stock this year, but analysts said he may have to raise an additional $2 billion to $3 billion provided that the rest of his financing remains unchanged.

Musk said in July he was walking away from the takeover agreement because he discovered Twitter had allegedly misled him about the amount of fake accounts, among other claims.

Part of Musk's case was based on allegations by Twitter whistleblower Peiter "Mudge" Zatko that became public in August, and Musk's legal team on Wednesday rejected the idea that they had inappropriate talks with Zatko or spoken with him before his concerns became public.

Twitter's legal team has wanted to investigate if Alex Spiro, a lawyer from legal firm Quinn Emanuel, who has led the case for Musk, communicated with the whistleblower as early as May.

Twitter lawyers were suspicious that Zatko sent an anonymous May 6 email to Spiro. The sender claimed to be a former Twitter employee, offered information about the company and suggested communicating by alternate means.

Spiro said in a filing with the court on Wednesday he never read the email until Twitter brought it to his attention and it appeared to be someone seeking a job. Spiro also said he was unaware of the existence of Zatko's allegations before they became public on Aug. 23.

https://www.reuters.com/markets/dea...reach-deal-end-litigation-sources-2022-10-05/
 
<b>Elon Musk under federal investigation over Twitter deal</b>

The news came from a court filing made public on Thursday about the latest in ongoing legal disputes between the billionaire and the social network.

While the filing said he was under investigation, it did not say what the focus was.

"This game of 'hide the ball' must end," the company said in the court filing.

Mr Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Twitter - which sued Mr Musk in July to force him to close the deal - said lawyers for the Tesla CEO had claimed "investigative privilege" when refusing to hand over documents it wanted.

It also said it had requested that Mr Musk's attorneys produce their communications with federal authorities months ago, but they had not done so.

In late September, Mr Musk's attorneys provided a "privilege log", identifying documents to be withheld.

The log referenced drafts of a 13 May email to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) - the American regulator which enforces the law against market manipulation.

It also referenced a slide presentation to the Federal Trade Commission - whose principal mission is promoting antitrust law and consumer protection.

The court request was filed on the same day the court granted a stay of litigation to allow Twitter and Mr Musk to close the takeover deal.

The SEC has questioned Mr Musk's comments about the Twitter acquisition.

In April, the SEC asked him whether the disclosure of his 9% Twitter stake was late and why it indicated that he intended to be a passive shareholder.

Mr Musk later refiled the disclosure to indicate he was an active investor.

In June, the SEC asked Mr Musk in a letter whether he should have amended his public filing to reflect his intention to suspend or abandon the deal.

Alex Spiro, an attorney for Mr Musk, told Reuters that Twitter's court filing was a "misdirection".

"It is Twitter's executives that are under federal investigation," he said.

Twitter declined to comment on the statement.

The filing comes as the months-long saga of Mr Musk's proposed Twitter purchase continues, during which the billionaire proposed a takeover, went back on the deal, and was then sued by Twitter to stick to his word.

The billionaire's side then said he would go ahead with the deal, just days before a trial was set to take place to force the purchase through.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-63254883
 
Elon Musk Fires Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, An Executive "Escorted Out"
Elon Musk's ownership will bring immediate disruption to Twitter's operations, in part because many of his ideas for how to change the company are at odds with how it has been run for years.

Elon Musk completed his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter Inc., according to people familiar with the matter, putting the world's richest man in charge of the struggling social network after six months of public and legal wrangling over the deal.
Among Musk's first moves: changing the leadership. Departures include Twitter Chief Executive Officer Parag Agrawal; Vijaya Gadde, the head of legal, policy and trust; Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal, who joined Twitter in 2017; and Sean Edgett, who has been general counsel at Twitter since 2012, according to people familiar with the matter. Edgett was escorted out of the building, said two of the people, who asked not to be identified because the information isn't public.

Shareholders will be paid $54.20 per share, and Twitter will now operate as a private company. The completion caps a convoluted saga that began in January with the billionaire's quiet accumulation of a major stake in the company, his growing exasperation with how it's run and an eventual merger accord that he later spent months trying to unravel.

On Oct. 4, Musk agreed to proceed on his originally proposed terms, and a Delaware Chancery Court judge gave the two sides until Oct. 28 to wrap up the deal. That deadline was met, and now Musk, who is CEO of both Tesla Inc. and SpaceX, also controls Twitter, a service he uses often but criticizes openly, and that he has promised to change dramatically. The company's shares are no longer expected to trade on the New York Stock Exchange.

Musk's ownership will bring immediate disruption to Twitter's operations, in part because many of his ideas for how to change the company are at odds with how it has been run for years. He has said he wants to ensure "free speech" on the social network, which is likely to mean looser content moderation standards, and plans to restore some high-profile accounts that were kicked off Twitter for breaking rules, such as former U.S. President Donald Trump's. More broadly, Musk's initiatives threaten to undo years of Twitter's efforts to reduce bullying and abuse on the platform.

As the deadline neared, Musk began putting his stamp on the company, posting a video of himself walking into the headquarters and changing his profile descriptor on the platform he now owns to "Chief Twit." He arranged meetings between Tesla engineers and product leadership at Twitter, and he planned to address the staff on Friday, people familiar with the matter said. Twitter's engineers could no longer make changes to code as of noon Thursday in San Francisco, part of an effort to ensure that nothing about the product changes ahead of the deal closing, the people said.

Twitter employees have been bracing for layoffs since the transaction was announced in April, and Musk floated the idea of cost cuts to banking partners when he was initially fundraising for the deal. Some potential investors were told Musk plans to cut 75% of Twitter's workforce, which now numbers about 7,500, and expects to double revenue within three years, a person familiar with the matter said earlier this month.

While visiting Twitter headquarters on Wednesday, Musk told employees that he doesn't plan to cut 75% of the staff when he takes over the company, according to people familiar with the matter.

'Get Healthy'

In June, during an all-hands meeting following his purchase agreement, Musk said that Twitter "needs to get healthy," a reference to trimming costs. He has also said only "exceptional" employees will be able to work from home and everyone else must come to the office. San Francisco-based Twitter was one of the first large companies to promise all employees they could work from anywhere "forever."

Twitter has done some of the work for him. The company announced a hiring freeze in May, closed or downsized several offices around the world, and canceled a 2023 companywide retreat to Disneyland.

Last week, Twitter froze the equity awards accounts for employees in anticipation of the deal closing. That prompted concerns among workers that he stock awards will not be paid, people familiar with the matter said, and some employees are discussing and researching labor laws to ensure they get the correct type of severance.

It was long clear that Agrawal probably wouldn't remain in charge once Musk took over. Text messages unveiled during the lawsuit show that the two men had a contentious exchange early on in the deal process, and Musk later mocked Agrawal for being on vacation in Hawaii during some of the early negotiations. Efforts by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to bring them back together after the deal was announced ended poorly.

"At least it became clear that you can't work together," Dorsey texted Musk on April 26. "That was clarifying."

Gadde, meanwhile, oversaw Twitter's content policy efforts, which Musk has lambasted.

Twitter's business, which relies mainly on advertising placed in users' feeds on its social network, has struggled in the time since Musk publicly entered the chat in April. In the second quarter, the company reported its first year-over-year sales decline since the height of the pandemic, and Twitter likely experienced a similar slump for the third quarter, though the company hasn't announced plans to report earnings.

No 'Hellscape' Here

Musk has mentioned the possibility of building a subscription product for Twitter to supplement ad revenue, though it's unclear which products or features might cost extra. Twitter already offers a subscription product, called Twitter Blue, which includes access to a tweet editing feature, but the company has said it is primarily targeted at power users. Musk hasn't been impressed. In April, he called Twitter Blue an "insane piece of s--t" in a text message to a friend.

The prospect of less restrictive content moderation under Musk's leadership has prompted concerns that dialogue on the social network will deteriorate, eroding years of efforts by the company and its "trust and safety" team to limit offensive or dangerous posts. On Thursday, Musk posted a note to advertisers seeking to reassure them he doesn't want Twitter to become a "free-for-all hellscape."

The past six months have been challenging for Twitter employees, who have primarily followed the ups and downs of the roller-coaster deal through the news headlines.

Many have been unhappy with Musk's involvement, with some questioning his qualifications to run a social networking company. His support of a far-right political candidate in Texas, plus sexual harassment accusations from a former SpaceX flight attend in May, have raised concerns with many of Twitter's workers. During a video Q&A with Musk in June, some employees mocked Musk on internal Slack channels. Others have ridiculed or chided him publicly on Twitter throughout the deal process.

NDTV
 
And now this:

Elon Musk fired Twitter’s head of censorship Vijaya Gadde ON AIR!!! She is the one responsible for many Right wing accounts suspension like Donald Trump, Kangana Ranaut etc.

<div style="width: 100%; height: 0px; position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.250%;"><iframe src="https://streamable.com/e/maq4em" frameborder="0" width="100%" height="100%" allowfullscreen style="width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute;"></iframe></div>
 
Elon Musk has dissolved Twitter's board of directors - cementing his control over the social media platform.

The multi-billionaire will be its chief executive after buying the company last week, ending months of back and forth over the $44bn (£38.3bn) deal.

He has moved quickly to put his mark on the firm, which is used by politicians and journalists around the world.

The reforms he is contemplating include changes for how Twitter verifies accounts, as well as job cuts.

The Washington Post has reported that a first round of cuts is under discussion that could affect 25% of the company's staff.

Twitter did not respond to a request for comment from the BBC on the report.

Top executives have already been removed, as Mr Musk brings in high profile allies to the company.

Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey has rolled his entire stake of 18m shares, worth almost $978m at the buyout price of $54.20, into the new private company, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday.

Mr Dorsey, who left Twitter's board in May, supported Mr Musk's purchase of the firm.

"Elon is the singular solution I trust. I trust his mission to extend the light of consciousness," he said in a tweet after the takeover was approved by the company's former management team.

Meanwhile, technology investor Jason Calacanis who changed his Twitter bio to "chief meme officer", said he was "hanging out at Twitter a bit ... during the transition".

He took to the social media site to solicit opinions on a range of topics from advertising to video.

Mr Calacanis also asked how much people would pay to be verified, amid reports that Twitter could charge people $20 per month to keep the blue ticks that indicate verified accounts.

Later on Tuesday, responding to a Twitter user calling for the platform to purge accounts that had been inactive for more than a year, Mr Musk said "definitely".

Mr Musk, who also leads electric car maker Tesla, changed his profile details on the social media site to "Chief Twit" after the takeover. It has since been updated to "Twitter Complaint Hotline Operator".

He is now the sole director of Twitter, another filing on Monday showed.

The nine ousted directors include former chairman of the board Bret Taylor and former chief executive Parag Agrawal.

Baroness Martha Lane Fox, currently president of the British Chambers of Commerce, who is among the board members to be removed under the merger agreement, declined to comment when approached by the BBC.

'National-security issue'
Mr Musk's takeover has drawn widespread scrutiny, as he signals plans to overhaul how Twitter has moderated the spread of information on its platform, including from sources such as state media, politicians and celebrities.

Mr Musk said the company would create a new council to govern those decisions and that no changes would occur yet.

On Monday, Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat, said that he had asked the government to review the national security implications of the deal, given the large stake in the company held by firms tied to Saudi Arabia, which has an increasingly tense relationship with the US.

"We should be concerned that the Saudis, who have a clear interest in repressing political speech and impacting US politics, are now the second-largest owner of a major social media platform," Mr Murphy wrote on Twitter.

"There is a clear national-security issue at stake and CFIUS [the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States] should do a review."

Mr Musk financed his takeover with his own money, a group of other investors and roughly $13bn in debt financing.

Analysts say that the increase in debt is likely to constrain the firm, which has struggled to expand its user base and not turned a profit in years.

Together, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and the Kingdom Holding Company are the second largest investor in the newly private company, according to a filing with the US government.

Prince Alwaleed, who was a major Twitter investor prior to the Musk deal, has tweeted the stake aligns with Kingdom Holding Company's "long-term investment strategy".

BBC
 
I’m reading that the number of racist posts on Twitter increased by 500% since Musk took over.

I don’t understand this type of hyperlibertarian thinking. Just because the race hate won’t affect him he seems to think it is ok to let it affect others.

I can see a lot of moderate leftists and liberals deserting the platform as it descending into a lawless Wild West far right and far left cesspool.
 
LOVE IT!

Liberals having a meltdown because they do not agree with free speech! Exposed as fascists!

Well done, Musk! The real enemies are from within!

Send these liberal SM users to the pits!
 
Robert said:
I’m reading that the number of racist posts on Twitter increased by 500% since Musk took over.

I don’t understand this type of hyperlibertarian thinking. Just because the race hate won’t affect him he seems to think it is ok to let it affect others.

I can see a lot of moderate leftists and liberals deserting the platform as it descending into a lawless Wild West far right and far left cesspool.
Click to expand...
It’s a Libertarian dream come true , I think lets wait and see what happens.. sometimes it’s better to just observe.

All the Libertarian pages that i follow are having a blast right now.

I’m sure you are interested in seeing where it ends up.. Elon Musk as they said in an article before always loved web1.0 which was lawless and didn’t confirm, he plans to make Twitter along those lines but funny thing is he is going to be charging for blue ticks lol.
 
JaDed said:
It’s a Libertarian dream come true , I think lets wait and see what happens.. sometimes it’s better to just observe.

All the Libertarian pages that i follow are having a blast right now.

I’m sure you are interested in seeing where it ends up.. Elon Musk as they said in an article before always loved web1.0 which was lawless and didn’t confirm, he plans to make Twitter along those lines but funny thing is he is going to be charging for blue ticks lol.
Click to expand...
[MENTION=137142]JaDed[/MENTION],

EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton says Musk intends to be aligned with the EU rules on online content.

https://www.euronews.com/next/2022/05/10/twitter-takeover-musk-says-he-s-exactly-aligned-with-new-eu-rules-tackling-illegal-online-
 
Elon Musk has said Twitter will charge $8 (£7) monthly to Twitter users who want a blue tick by their name indicating a verified account.

As part of changes after a $44bn (£38bn) takeover of the social media site, Mr Musk said it was "essential to defeat spam/scam".

A blue tick mark next to a username - normally for high-profile figures - is currently free.

BBC
 
Musk Plans to Eliminate Half of Twitter Jobs to Cut Costs

  • Twitter’s new owner aims to reduce workforce starting Friday
  • Remaining employees will be asked to return to office

Elon Musk plans to eliminate about 3,700 jobs at Twitter Inc., or half of the social media company’s workforce, in a bid to drive down costs following his $44 billion acquisition, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

Twitter’s new owner aims to inform affected staffers Friday, said the people, who requested anonymity discussing non-public plans. Musk also intends to reverse the company’s existing work-from-anywhere policy, asking remaining employees to report to offices -- though some exceptions could be made, the people said.

Musk and a team of advisers have been weighing a range of scenarios for job cuts and other policy changes at San Francisco-based Twitter, the people said, adding that the terms of the headcount reduction could still change. In one scenario being considered, laid off workers will be offered 60 days’ worth of severance pay, two of the people said.

After the layoffs were sorted, Twitter Chief Accounting Officer Robert Kaiden left the company, becoming one of the last pre-Musk C-suite executives to depart, according to people familiar with the matter.

A spokesperson for Twitter didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Musk is under pressure to find ways to slash costs of a business for which he says he overpaid. The billionaire agreed to pay $54.20 a share in April just as markets tumbled. He then tried for months to get out of the transaction, alleging that the company misled him about the prevalence of fake accounts. Twitter sued to force Musk to make good on his agreement, and in recent weeks, Musk caved, resigning himself to closing the deal at the agreed-upon terms. The take-private deal closed Thursday.

Twitter employees have been bracing for layoffs ever since Musk took over and immediately ousted much of the top executive team, including Chief Executive Officer Parag Agrawal, finance chief Ned Segal and senior legal staffers Vijaya Gadde and Sean Edgett. In the days that followed, other departures have included Chief Marketing Officer Leslie Berland, Chief Customer Officer Sarah Personette, and Jean-Philippe Maheu, who was vice president of global client solutions.

Musk anointed himself “Chief Twit” in his bio on the social network. Bloomberg reported earlier that he would take on the role of interim CEO himself. He also dissolved the company’s board and became sole director, saying later that it’s “just temporary.”

Over the weekend, a few employees with director and vice president jobs were cut, people familiar with the matter said. Other leaders were asked to make lists of employees on their teams who could be cut, the people said.

Senior personnel on the product teams were asked to target a 50% reduction in headcount, a person familiar with the matter said this week. Engineers and director-level staff from Tesla Inc., the carmaker also run by Musk, reviewed the lists, the person said. Layoff lists were drawn up and ranked based on individuals’ contributions to Twitter’s code during their time at the company, the people said. The assessment was made by both Tesla personnel and Twitter managers.

Concerns over steep personnel cuts started to swirl in the run-up to Musk’s buyout, when potential investors were told that he’d eliminate 75% of the workforce, which stood at about 7,500 at the end of 2021. Musk later denied that the cuts would be that deep.

In recent weeks, Musk started hinting at his staffing priorities, saying he wants to focus on the core product. “Software engineering, server operations & design will rule the roost,” he tweeted in early October.

Musk is trying to generate more revenue, too. The company will soon start charging for verification.

The badges will be part of an $8-a-month subscription that could go live as early as Monday, according to people familiar with the plans. Users who already have a blue verification badge will have a multi-month grace period before they will either need to pay for the badge or lose it, said one of the people, who requested anonymity discussing plans that aren’t public.

Bloomberg
 
Twitter employees will find out whether they're being laid off later today - one week after Elon Musk's takeover.

The social network's offices are temporarily closed, and workers will find out their fate by 4pm UK time.

Those who are losing their jobs will receive a message to their personal email address, while employees staying on will get an email to their work account.

An internal memo said: "In an effort to place Twitter on a healthy path, we will go through the difficult process of reducing our global workforce on Friday."

"We recognise that this will impact a number of individuals who have made valuable contributions to Twitter, but this action is unfortunately necessary to ensure the company's success moving forward," it said.

"If you are in an office or on your way to an office, please return home," it added.

Twitter said all badge access will be suspended "to help ensure the safety of each employee as well as Twitter systems and customer data."

A Twitter employee told NBC News it is the first communication staff have received since Musk's 27 October acquisition.

"It's total chaos, house melting down, everyone looking towards this email," they said.

Staff have started sharing messages of support with each other on Twitter, using the workplace hashtag #OneTeam - with one tweeting: "Just lost access to my Twitter email and Slack. This is so unreal."

It comes after the company moved to reassure staff last month that there were no plans for mass redundancies in the wake of a US press report that Musk wanted to make 75% of the 7,500-strong workforce redundant after his $44bn (£38.4bn) takeover.

However, The Washington Post report said job cuts were inevitable, claiming there was a plan to slash Twitter's payroll by about $800m (£715m) by the end of next year.

According to Reuters news agency, Musk has ordered Twitter's teams to find up to $1bn (£895m) in annual infrastructure cost savings.

It's been a week since Musk walked into Twitter's San Francisco headquarters carrying a kitchen sink.

The notification of layoffs caps off seven days of purges by the entrepreneur.

He has already fired the social media company's top leadership, which he accused of misleading him over the number of spam accounts on the platform.

Musk has also pledged to make getting rid of spam accounts one of his main priorities - but there's another mounting exodus that he perhaps did not intend.

Fears over the Tesla and SpaceX founder's potentially loose stance on content moderation has plenty of genuine users considering quitting the platform, including some celebrities.

He has also revealed plans to move Twitter's verification badges behind a paid subscription - charging $8 a month as part of a Twitter Blue membership.

Musk, who has updated his Twitter bio to "Chief Twit", has said he did not buy Twitter to make more money but "to try to help humanity, whom I love".

SKY
 
25-Year-Old Man's Post After Getting Fired From Twitter Wins Internet

After billionaire Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter, employees of the social media giant were under a cloud of uncertainty about their future at the company. However, the company announced employee layoffs are expected to get underway on Friday and about half of Twitter's 7,500 workers appeared set to lose their jobs, according to a report.

Some employees have already started receiving mails about their dismissal and have been posting about the same on the microblogging platform. While many are angry and heartbroken about the move, one employee who got laid off took to the platform to share the news in a cheerful manner. He said "Just got laid off. Bird App, it was an absolute honour, the greatest privilege ever to be a part of this team, this culture #LoveWhereYouWorked #LoveTwitter"

The 25-year-old was not heartbroken about him being fired but in turn appreciated his time spent at the company. He also shared a picture of himself holding two cushions having Twitter's logo. It appears that the picture was taken at the Twitter office. As per his bio, Yash Agarwal worked in the Public Policy team of the social media platform.

The tweet was posted a few hours ago and has received over 3,300 likes and several comments. Many users appreciated his positive outlook towards life and wished Mr Agarwal luck for his next adventure.

One user said, "Sending lots of love! Your work has always been inspiring, I'm sure you're gonna keep doing amazing things, as they come next."

"This positive outlook towards life is rare to see. Wish you unmatched success and happiness in everything you choose to do! Best wishes for your future endeavors!," added another user.

Another user wrote, "Never ever seen or read laid off tweet with so much of energy and enthu. Wishing you all the best and you will get a great opportunity."

"From a hobby, to habit. From source of news to income, twitter has been amazing for you. So glad you got to do this. Time for the next challenge!"

NDTV
 
Elon Musk has defended sacking half of Twitter's 8,000 workers, saying "unfortunately, there is no choice".

Mr Musk insisted that the platform's commitment to moderation remained "absolutely unchanged".

He tweeted: "Regarding Twitter's reduction in force, unfortunately there is no choice when the company is losing over $4m a day.

"Everyone exited was offered three months of severance, which is 50% more than legally required."

Just minutes before Mr Musk's tweets, Twitter head of safety and integrity Yoel Roth confirmed the layoffs had affected 50% of the company, including approximately 15% of the trust and safety department.

Frontline moderation staff had experienced "the least impact", he added.

Mr Musk re-tweeted this, describing it as an "excellent summary".

The words were aimed at reassuring users worried that Mr Musk's takeover and the job losses would gut the moderation and safety teams and render the platform lawless.

This is particularly important ahead of the US midterm elections, with Twitter having been blamed as a factor in the spread of disinformation and abuse.

Jessica González, co-chief executive of Free Press, said: "When you layoff reportedly 50% of your staff - including teams who are in charge of actually tracking, monitoring and enforcing content moderation and rules - that necessarily means that content moderation has changed."

Entire teams eliminated

Several employees tweeted about losing their jobs, saying Twitter had eliminated teams focused on human rights and global conflicts, another team checking algorithms for bias in how tweets are amplified, and an engineering team devoted to making the platform more accessible for people with disabilities.

The company had moved to reassure staff last month that there were no plans for mass redundancies after it was reported that Mr Musk wanted to make 75% of the workforce redundant after his $44bn (£38.4bn) takeover.

But Mr Musk fired a number of top executives, including Chief Executive Parag Agrawal, and removed the company's board of directors on his first day as owner.

Lawsuit filed by ex-employees

Employees were later told that they would find out their future on Friday, with some getting early clues after losing access to their work accounts.

At least one lawsuit has been filed by four ex-employees alleging Twitter had violated federal law by not giving fired employees the required notice, The Associated Press reported.

Mr Musk could also be open to discrimination claims if it turns out that certain groups were disproportionately affected, such as women, people of colour or older workers.

'Great care' needed in 'layoffs of this magnitude'

Employment lawyer Peter Rahbar told The Associated Press that most employers "take great care in doing layoffs of this magnitude" to make they are justified and don't unfairly discriminate or bring unwanted attention to the company.

"For some reason, he seemingly wants to lay off half the company without doing any due diligence on what these people do or who they are and without any regards to the law."

In the UK, Twitter is required by law to give employees notice, according to Emma Bartlett, a partner in employment and partnership law at CM Murray LLP.

Failure to notify the government in the case of mass firings could "have criminal penalties associated with it", she said, adding that whether criminal sanctions are ever applied is another question.

Meanwhile, a number of companies said they will suspend ad spending on Twitter, including United Airlines, Audi, General Mills and General Motors.

SKY
 
Twitter Founder Jack Dorsey's Apology Amid Elon Musk's Change Overdrive

Twitter founder Jack Dorsey today apologised to the employees of the company, a day after the social media laid off nearly 50 per cent of its work force.

"Folks at Twitter past and present are strong and resilient. They will always find a way no matter how difficult the moment. I realize many are angry with me. I own the responsibility for why everyone is in this situation: I grew the company size too quickly. I apologize for that," Mr Dorsey tweeted.

Elon Musk, who acquired Twitter last week, has removed most top executives and the board and roughly half the company's 7,500 employees. The move capped a week of chaos and uncertainty about the company's future under new owner Elon Musk, the world's richest person, who tweeted on Friday that the service was experiencing a "massive drop in revenue" from the advertiser retreat.

Jack Dorsey stepped down from the Twitter board in May this year, ending his formal relationship with the social network heco-founded in 2006. He has been a director since 2007, and was most recently Twitter CEO from mid-2015 until his resignation last year.

NDTV
 
Twitter Fires More Than 90% Of India Staff, Leaving Just A Dozen

Twitter Inc. fired more than 90% of its staff in India over the weekend -- part of global reductions by new owner Elon Musk -- severely depleting its engineering and product staff in a potential growth market.

The company employed just over 200 people in India, and the cuts left it with just about a dozen staff, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter.

India is a key growth engine for global internet companies such as Twitter, Meta Platforms Inc. and Alphabet Inc.'s Google, which are relying on its large potential pool of new online users. Yet the companies are also facing increasingly strict content regulations aimed at reining in big tech firms in the country.

About 70% of the jobs cut in India were from the product and engineering team which worked on a global mandate, one of the people said. Positions were also slashed across functions including marketing, public policy and corporate communications, the people said. Globally, San Francisco, California-based Twitter reduced its headcount by about half or roughly 3,700 workers.

Twitter didn't immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

India has one of the most febrile political conversations on Twitter, with competing parties regularly slinging allegations back and forth and accusing each other of spreading misinformation. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has more than 84 million followers on the service. It's unclear how Twitter expects to moderate that discourse with its newly reduced staff in the country, which has more than 100 languages.

Twitter's India offices are located in New Delhi, the financial capital of Mumbai and the southern tech hub of Bengaluru.

The company has about 3,700 employees remaining globally, Bloomberg News has reported. Musk is pushing those who remain to move quickly in shipping new features, and in some cases, employees have even slept at the office to meet new deadlines.

NDTV
 
Elon Musk foreign ties worth looking at, Joe Biden says

US President Joe Biden says Elon Musk's relationships with foreign countries are "worthy of being looked at".

Mr Biden was asked whether Mr Musk posed a national security threat and if Saudi Arabia helping him to buy Twitter should be investigated.

Saudi Arabia's Prince Alwaleed bin Talal rolled over a $1.89bn (£1.7bn) Twitter stake into Mr Musk's takeover.

This month the kingdom's stake drew the attention of a Democratic senator, who called for a probe into the deal.

During a news conference at the White House on Wednesday a reporter asked Mr Biden: "Do you think Elon Musk is a threat to US national security and should the US, with the tools you have, investigate his joint acquisition of Twitter with foreign governments, which include the Saudis?"

"Elon Musk's cooperation and/or technical relationships with other countries is worthy of being looked at," Mr Biden said.

"Whether or not he is doing anything inappropriate -- I'm not suggesting that. I'm suggesting it's worth being looked at. That's all I'll say," he added.

Mr Musk completed his $44bn takeover of Twitter last month putting an end to a prolonged legal battle. The deal was financed by Mr Musk and a group of other investors.

Saudi Arabia's Prince Alwaleed and the Kingdom Holding Company are the second largest investor in the newly-private company, according to a filing with the US financial watchdog.

Earlier this month Democratic Senator Chris Murphy called for an immediate investigation into the national security implications of Saudi Arabia's stake in Twitter.

"Given Twitter's critical role in public communication, I am concerned by the potential influence of the Government of Saudi Arabia," Mr Murphy, who leads a key Foreign Relations subcommittee, said in a letter.

Mr Musk has previously waded into contentious topics with comments about Ukraine and Taiwan.

Last month he denied a report that he had spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin before posting a Twitter poll with his suggestions for ending the war with Ukraine.

Ian Bremmer, the head of the Eurasia Group political risk consultancy, said that Mr Musk had personally told him about the conversation with Mr Putin.

"I have spoken to Putin only once and that was about 18 months ago. The subject matter was space," Mr Musk tweeted.

Mr Musk has also weighed in on the highly contentious subject of China's relationship with Taiwan.

In an interview with the Financial Times, the chief executive of Tesla said Taiwan should become a special administrative zone of China.

China's ambassador to the US praised Mr Musk's comments but his Taiwanese counterpart said freedom is "not for sale".

Taiwan rules itself but Beijing claims it as part of its territory.

BBC
 
Lots of famous people are quitting Twitter for Mastodon.
 
Twitter chaos after wave of blue tick impersonations

A wave of new paid blue tick accounts impersonating influential individuals and brands has led to chaos and confusion on Twitter.

Fake "verified" accounts in the names of politicians, celebrities, major organisations and businesses started appearing on the platform on Thursday.

Twitter suspended many of them, but the company's rapidly changing attempts to address the issue added to the confusion.

Experts had previously warned that the new Twitter Blue subscription service announced by new chief Elon Musk, which allows users to pay £6.99 ($7.99) per month for a blue tick, would be immediately exploited by bad actors and scammers, and erode trust in the platform.

The extent of the problem with new fake blue tick accounts was laid bare after the feature launched on Wednesday.

Blue tick versions of major brand accounts such as Apple, Nintendo, BP and Chiquita were suspended. Fake accounts posing as high-profile individuals like Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg, current and former US Presidents Joe Biden, Donald Trump and George W Bush, and former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair were also removed.

In one case, an account in the name of Republican candidate for Arizona governor Kari Lake tweeted to announce she was conceding to her Democratic opponent, despite the fact votes are still being counted in the tight race. It took hours for Twitter to remove the tweet and the fake account.

A fake Tesla account, another company owned by Mr Musk, joked about 9/11, while Mr Musk himself was impersonated.

One of the most disruptive accounts impersonated US pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly, and declared "insulin is free now".

The company had to distance itself from the fake announcement.

The paid blue tick system is also being exploited by conspiracy theorists and far-right activists.

The BBC has seen at least three well-known QAnon influencer accounts which have purchased blue ticks on Twitter.

Far-right activists Jason Kessler and Richard Spencer, who organised the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, have both purchased blue ticks.

Twitter had previously removed verification badges from the accounts of Mr Kessler and Mr Spencer after the violent rally five years ago.

Researchers also spotted a variety of accounts with purchased blue ticks using AI generated images of fake personalities. This is a specific area of concern as such inauthentic accounts are routinely used in influence operations, at times by foreign states with the aim of influencing political events in other countries.

Twitter suspended many of the imposter blue tick accounts, but at times struggled to keep up with the pace of new ones appearing.

New grey "official" badges were added under the handles of some high-profile accounts, before being scrapped by Mr Musk almost immediately.

However, on Friday new grey official badges began reappearing on some Twitter profiles.

And some users based in the US reported the Twitter Blue subscription system was no longer available to them.

Mr Musk himself initially said blue tick parody accounts of high-profile users would have to clarify that they are not genuine in their profile bios.

Later he declared the word parody would also need to be included in account names, adding that "tricking people is not ok".

As of now, it is still unclear how Mr Musk and his newly acquired platform plan to address the issue of blue tick impersonations in the long run.

While the issue of verified accounts temporarily changing their names in ways which might mislead had previously surfaced on the platform, such attempts were extremely rare.

Experts worry that the harm caused by a lack of trust in Twitter's verification system could come to the fore during events such as mass shootings, terrorist attacks or natural disasters, where Twitter is often used by local authorities, police, emergency services and journalists for accurate information and advice.

The BBC reached to Twitter for comment, but received no response.

BBC
 
"I Have Too Much Work On My Plate": Elon Musk

Nusa Dua: Billionaire Elon Musk said on Monday he was working "at the absolute most amount...from morning til night, seven days a week" when asked about his recent acquisition of Twitter and his leadership of automaker Tesla Inc.

"I have too much work on my plate that is for sure," Musk said by videolink to a business conference on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali.

Musk is chief executive of both companies and also runs rocket firm SpaceX, brain-chip startup Neuralink and tunneling firm the Boring Company. Wearing a batik shirt sent by the organizers, he appeared on screen lit by candles, explaining that he was speaking from a place that had just lost power.

Tesla investors worry that Musk, a self-confessed "nanomanager" who has been personally involved in working-level decisions from car styling to supply chain issues, is distracted at a critical time for the world's largest electric vehicle maker.

Tesla's shares have halved in value since early April, when he disclosed he had taken a stake in Twitter. His Tesla share sales, including another $4 billion last week to bring his Twitter-related sales to $20 billion, have added to the pressure.

When asked about the complexity of industrial supply chains "decoupling" from China and the risks from Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Musk returned to how busy he was.

Responding to an observation that many business leaders in Asia wanted to be the "Elon Musk of the East," Musk said: "I'd be careful what you wish for. I'm not sure how many people would actually like to be me. They would like to be what they imagine being me, which is not the same thing as actually being me. The amount that I torture myself is next level, frankly."

Musk also said he wanted to see Twitter support more video and longer-form video so that content creators could make a living on the platform, but did not provide details. His remarks were streamed live on Alphabet Inc's YouTube.

Indonesia has been trying to secure a deal with Tesla on battery investment and potentially one for SpaceX to develop a rocket launch site.

Musk made no commitment to either of those but said Indonesia had a large role to play in the electric vehicle supply chain and that it would make sense "long term" for SpaceX to have multiple launch points around the globe.

It was not clear where Musk was during the Bali event. His personal jet has remained in Austin, Texas, Tesla's headquarters since the weekend, according to @ElonJet, a Twitter account that tracks Musk's Gulfstream G650.

"I'm just looking at this video and it's so bizarre," Musk said. "I'm sitting here in the dark surrounded by candles."

Musk added he believed that the economy would make the transition to sustainable energy, adding it was "just a question of how long it takes." He said space exploration should remain a priority "so we can understand the nature of the universe and our place in it."

"Maybe we'll find alien civilization or discover civilizations that existed millions of years ago, but we see the ruins of ancient civilizations. I think that would be incredibly interesting," he said.

NDTV
 
Looks like Musk is bleeding money as Twitter advertising pulls out. His attempt to make it a libertarian Wild West, as the WWW once was, has alienated some of the business community.
 
Paying for the verification is pointless for business when there are so many spoof accounts now. Couldn’t he take some time out to properly think about how to monetise Twitter without causing so much damage, it seems like the platform is just a new play thing for him.
 
Twitter has told employees that the company's office buildings will be temporarily closed, effective immediately.

In a message seen by the BBC, workers were told that the offices would reopen on Monday 21 November.

It did not give a reason for the move.

The announcement comes amid reports that large numbers of staff were quitting after new owner Elon Musk called on them to sign up for "long hours at high intensity" or leave.

The message went on to say: "Please continue to comply with company policy by refraining from discussing confidential company information on social media, with the press or elsewhere."

Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the BBC.

This week Mr Musk told Twitter staff that they had to commit to working long hours and would "need to be extremely hardcore" or leave the company, according to reports.

In an email to staff, the firm's new owner said workers should agree to the pledge if they wanted to stay, the Washington Post reported.

Those who did not sign up by Thursday 17 November would be given three months' severance pay, Mr Musk said.

Earlier this month the company said that it was cutting around 50% of its workforce.

Today's announcement that Twitter had temporarily closed its offices came amid signs that large numbers of workers have now also resigned as they have not accepted Mr Musk's new terms.

Employees have been tweeting using the hashtag #LoveWhereYouWorked and a saluting emoji to show they were leaving the firm.

One former Twitter worker who wished to remain anonymous told the BBC: "I think when the dust clears today, there's probably going to be less than 2,000 people left."

They added that everyone in their team had been terminated.

"The manager of that team, his manager was terminated. And then that manager's manager was terminated. The person above that was one of the execs terminated on the first day. So there's nobody left in that chain of command."

Before Mr Musk took control of Twitter the company had around 7,500 staff. The firm was also reported to have employed thousands of contract workers, the majority of which are understood to have been laid off.

Another person said they had resigned even though they had been prepared to work long hours.

"I didn't want to work for someone who threatened us over email multiple times about only 'exceptional tweeps should work here' when I was already working 60-70 hours weekly," they said.

The world's richest person became Twitter's chief executive after buying the firm last month in a $44bn (£37bn) deal.

In response to a question about concerns that Twitter was on the brink of shutting down after the message about Twitter's offices being closed was sent Mr Musk tweeted:

"The best people are staying, so I'm not super worried".

In separate posts he tweeted a skull and crossbones emoji and a meme showing a gravestone with the Twitter logo on it.

BBC
 
Is this really the end of Twitter?

Twitter today is awash with people saying goodbye.

The hashtag "RIPTwitter" is trending and lots of the site's users are scrambling to download their data.

They're also sharing alternative places to find them (consumer champion Martin Lewis, who has 2m Twitter followers, has set himself up on Mastodon, although he admits he doesn't know how to use it yet).

Twitter's new boss Elon Musk, never one to ignore a trend, tweeted a meme of a gravestone with the Twitter logo on it.

Staff have been leaving in their droves - half the workforce was laid off by Mr Musk one week after he completed his purchase of the platform, and many more are choosing to leave since he sent an email demanding "hardcore" working conditions and long hours from his remaining employees.

Quite a few of those departing, according to their Twitter bios, are engineers, developers and coders - the people who work on the guts of what makes Twitter function.

Let's take the two biggest vulnerabilities that could knock the blue bird off its perch very swiftly.

Could it be hacked?

The first and most obvious would be a catastrophic hack.

Twitter, like all big websites (including this one, the BBC), will be constantly under attack from bad actors - even at state level - wanting to cause mischief. World leaders, politicians and celebrities all have personal Twitter accounts with millions of followers - a low-hanging fruit for a hacker wanting a lot of people to see their scam, as we have seen before.

Or they might just want it to disappear, so they bombard it with web traffic to see if it gets overwhelmed and shuts down that way. Attempts like this will be happening all the time - it's a constant battle.

Cyber security is, or at least should be, an important part of any 21st century company's day-to-day operations. Last week Twitter's head of cyber security, Lea Kissner, left. It's not known if they were replaced. (Twitter also has no communications team, so there's no easy way to ask.)

Twitter's security is likely to be pretty robust. You can't run a site used by 300 million people every month that's held together with a bit of string. But that robustness requires continuing maintenance.

Think about your own phone, or laptop, and the regular security updates you have to install. That's because new vulnerabilities are regularly unearthed, new chinks in the armour that you didn't know you had, and it's the job of the provider to send you the fix.

Servers under threat

The second potential disaster is that the servers are knocked out - either by someone with a grudge, or by mistake during a routine bit of maintenance that's not properly supervised.

Without servers, there is no Twitter (or Facebook, or Instagram or indeed our digital world.)

Servers - powerful computers - are like the physical bodies of these platforms. They exist in data centres. These are effectively warehouses full of computer servers which are central to the operations of online businesses. The world runs on servers.

As you can imagine, all of those machines generate a lot of heat. Data centres have to be kept cool, and they require a constant source of electricity.

The servers themselves also require maintenance and replacement, as data gets migrated between them. All of that has the capacity for something to go wrong. It would be sudden and dramatic if it did.

The nuclear option

Elon Musk knows all this, of course. Let's not assume that he doesn't. However he may choose to play the buffoon.

We don't know who is currently keeping watch.

But something happened to me yesterday that made me think perhaps there are more people at Twitter watching than we think.

I told the story about an astronomer who was locked out of her account after wrongly falling foul of automated moderation tools. Nobody at Twitter or Mr Musk's other firms responded to me, or made contact with her. But her account was indeed restored later that day.

Somebody, somewhere inside Twitter, was paying attention. Perhaps there are still enough of them who are doing just that.

There is of course a third option - the nuclear one - which is that Musk declares Twitter bankrupt, and it gets wound down. Although right now he seems to be enjoying his status as Chief Twit.

BBC
 
The future of Twitter seemed to hang in the balance on Friday after its offices were locked down and key employees announced their departures in defiance of an ultimatum from new owner Elon Musk.

Fears grew that a fresh exodus would threaten the very existence of one of the world’s most influential internet platforms, which serves as a key communication tool for the world’s media, politicians, companies, activists and celebrities.

According to ex-employees and US media, hundreds of employees chose “no” to Musk’s demand that they either be “extremely hardcore” or leave the company.

“So my friends are gone, the vision is murky, there is a storm coming and no financial upside. What would you do?” tweeted Peter Clowes, who refused Musk’s final warning.

Musk, also the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has come under fire for radical changes at the California-based firm, which he bought less than a month ago for $44 billion.

He had already fired half of Twitter’s 7,500 staff, scrapped a work-from-home policy and imposed long hours, all while his attempts to overhaul the company faced backlash and delays.

His stumbling attempts to revamp user verification with a controversial subscription service led to a slew of fake accounts and pranks, and prompted major advertisers to step away from the platform.

On Friday, Musk appeared to be pressing on with his plans and reinstated previously banned accounts, including that of comedian Kathy Griffin, which had been taken down after she impersonated him on the site.

Musk did not immediately welcome back former US president Donald Trump, saying the “decision has not yet been made” on the return of the ex-leader.

Trump was banned for inciting last year’s attack on the Capitol by a mob seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 US election.

But hours later, Musk posted a poll to Twitter asking users to vote “yes” or “no” on whether to “Reinstate former President Trump,” though there was no clear indication that he would adhere to the results of the ad hoc survey.

Musk has done similar polls in the past, asking followers last year if he should sell stock in his electric car company Tesla.

‘Not super worried’
Fevered talk of the site’s imminent demise was driving record-high engagement on Twitter, according to Musk.

In a tweet, the South African-born billionaire said: “Record numbers of users are logging in to see if Twitter is dead, ironically making it more alive than ever!”

Musk added that the “best people are staying, so I’m not super worried.”

Despite Musk’s assurances, entry to Twitter’s offices was temporarily closed until Monday, even with a badge, according to an internal message seen on US media.

In leaked emails reported in The New York Times, Musk asked engineers critical to the site’s functioning to make their way to Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco on Friday to meet him in person.

Twitter did not respond to AFP requests for comment on the new measure.

In the ultimatum sent on Wednesday, Musk had asked staff to follow a link to affirm their commitment to “the new Twitter” by 5pm New York time (2200 GMT) on Thursday.

If they did not do so, they would have lost their jobs, receiving three months of severance pay.

Signs that government regulators were becoming impatient with Musk’s handling of Twitter also grew on Friday, especially over the platform’s ability to moderate content with a severely reduced headcount.

A group of US senators on Thursday said Musk’s plans for the site “undermined the integrity and safety of the platform … despite clear warnings those changes would be abused for fraud, scams, and dangerous impersonation”.

A top regulator for the European Union, meanwhile, said that Musk should be increasing the number of moderators in Europe, not reducing them.

Musk “knows perfectly well what the conditions are for Twitter to continue operating in Europe”, EU commissioner Thierry Breton told French radio.

A spokesman for German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said his government was watching developments at Twitter “with growing concern” and reviewing its presence on the platform.

DAWN
 
Strange fellow, Musk. Gets science and technology. Doesn’t really get people. Doesn’t seem to realise that Twitter creates value through community. If you take the sense of community away, the platform collapses.
 
Day After 1,200 Twitter Employees Resign, Elon Musk's SOS To Engineers

New Delhi: A day after hundreds of Twitter employees decided to resign, owner Elon Musk sent an SOS to the staff: Anyone who writes software, please report to the 10th floor at 2 pm today. Musk, in an email, asked software engineers to fly to San Francisco and be at the Twitter office in person.

Musk added that only those who can't physically get to the Bay Area or have family emergencies will be excused from attending, reports Bloomberg.

The Twitter owner asked the engineers to send a bullet-point summary of their coding accomplishments in the last six months, along with as many as 10 screenshots of the most salient lines of code. Musk said the meetings will be short, and are being held to help him “understand the Twitter tech stack.”

The mail came hours after Twitter was forced to close its office after a mass exodus over Musk's ultimatum to commit to an "extremely hardcore" work environment. Musk had asked the staff to choose between working intense long hours, or losing their jobs.

At least 1,200 employees resigned yesterday creating a cloud of confusion over which people should still have access to company property, reports New York Times.

Musk, the world's richest man, has come under fire for radical changes at the social media company, which he bought for $44 billion late last month.

He had already fired half of the company's 7,500 staff, scrapped a work-from-home policy, and imposed long hours, all while his attempts to overhaul Twitter have faced chaos and delays.

NDTV
 
Elon Musk asks Twitter users to vote on reinstatement of Donald Trump

Elon Musk has posted a poll on Twitter asking users to vote on whether former US President Donald Trump, who was banned from the social media site by its previous owners, should be reinstated.

The Twitter boss accompanied it with the words: "Vox Populi, Vox Dei" - a Latin phrase meaning "the voice of the people is the voice of God".

Before he was set to buy Twitter, Mr Musk said he would reverse the platform's "foolish" ban on Mr Trump if he took charge of the company.

"Permanent bans should be extremely rare and really reserved for accounts that are bots or spam, scam accounts. I do think it was not correct to ban Donald Trump," he said in May.

"I think that was a mistake because it alienated a large part of the country and did not ultimately result in Donald Trump not having a voice."

Mr Trump was permanently suspended from Twitter in January 2021 following the attack by his supporters on the US Capitol that left several people dead.

The tech company said it made the decision after the 6 January riot "due to the risk of further incitement of violence".

Mr Trump at the time had more than 80 million followers on the platform.

It comes as the billionaire Tesla owner asked remaining Twitter employees who write software code to report to the 10th floor of the office in San Francisco by 2pm local time on Saturday, according to an email seen by the Reuters news agency.
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"If possible, I would appreciate it if you could fly to SF to be present in person," Mr Musk was quoted as saying in the email, adding he would be at the company's headquarters until midnight and would return on Saturday morning.

On Friday, hundreds of Twitter employees were estimated to have decided to leave the company following a Thursday deadline from Mr Musk that staffers agree to longer, more intense working patterns or quit.

The exodus adds to the rapid change and chaos that have marked Mr Musk's first three weeks as Twitter's owner, during which the company's headcount had already been more than halved by layoffs and other departures to around 3,700.

With so much of Twitter's workforce now gone, there is speculation that the site will crash during the World Cup - one of the site's busiest traffic events.

Social media expert Matt Navarra told the PA news agency that the chances of Twitter being knocked offline have "dramatically increased" in the past 24 hours because of the latest exodus.

He said he believes any imminent blackout is unlikely because certain locks prevent changes to the platform's base code while Mr Musk reorganises the firm.

"There's a code freeze in place and Twitter is kind of running on autopilot at the moment with its IT systems, and that's a strategic move by Elon Musk to protect the stability of the platform while he figures out the next move," Mr Navarra said.

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Elon Musk, Twitter's new owner, is considering laying off more employees, just weeks after he laid off half the company's workforce, reports Bloomberg. The company's operations have also been impacted after a staff exodus over Elon Musk's ultimatum: either work in a "hardcore environment" or leave.

The fresh job cuts are expected to target employees in the sales and partnership teams of Twitter, according to Bloomberg. The report adds that the layoffs could be announced as soon as tomorrow.

Musk, the world's richest man, asked the team leads in those departments to agree to fire more employees. Robin Wheeler, who ran marketing and sales, refused to do so, the report said. So did Maggie Suniewick, who ran partnerships. Both lost their jobs, as a result, reports Bloomberg.

Twitter, which no longer has a communications department, did not respond to a message sent to its press line.

Musk has come under severe criticism has come under fire for radical changes at Twitter, which he bought less than a month ago for $44 billion. In one of his first decisions at the micro-blogging platform, Musk fired 50 per cent of Twitter's 7,500 staff. He also scrapped the company's work-from-home policy.

Nearly 1,200 employees resigned after Musk's "hardcore work" ultimatum, forcing Twitter to close their offices till Monday.

Musk's stumbling attempts to revamp user verification with a controversial subscription service led to a slew of fake accounts and pranks and prompted major advertisers to step away from the platform.

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Twitter to launch gold and grey verification ticks alongside blue check mark, in 'painful, but necessary' move, says Elon Musk

Twitter will roll out gold and grey verification check marks when it relaunches the delayed blue tick service next week, owner Elon Musk has announced.

The move was "painful, but necessary", the billionaire chief executive said in a post on the social media platform.

All verified accounts will be manually authenticated before the tick is activated, said Mr Musk.

He wrote: "Gold check for companies, grey check for governments, blue for individuals (celebrities or not). Painful, but necessary."

In a further tweet, Mr Musk said: "Individuals can have a secondary tiny logo to show they belong to an organisation if verified as such by that organisation."

He added a longer explanation would be provided next week.

The social media platform put on hold its recently announced $8 blue tick subscription service in the face of soaring fake accounts and said it would be relaunched on 29 November.

The blue check mark was previously reserved for verified accounts of politicians, celebrities, journalists and other public figures.

The details of the revamped authentication scheme come after Mr Musk announced he will grant an "amnesty" for suspended Twitter accounts, prompting warnings over a rise in harassment, hate speech and misinformation.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Sorry for the delay, we’re tentatively launching Verified on Friday next week. <br><br>Gold check for companies, grey check for government, blue for individuals (celebrity or not) and all verified accounts will be manually authenticated before check activates. <br><br>Painful, but necessary.</p>— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1596053664338440192?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 25, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

The tycoon had asked his more than 118 million followers to vote in a poll on reinstatements for accounts that have not "broken the law or engaged in egregious spam".

The yes vote was 72%.

The Tesla and SpaceX boss had previously reinstated the account of former president Donald Trump, almost two years after he was removed.

Mr Trump was permanently suspended from Twitter in January 2021 after the attack by his supporters on the US Capitol that left several people dead.

Twitter said the decision, after the riot, was "due to the risk of further incitement of violence".

But the former US president has told supporters he did not see "any reason" for returning to Twitter.

Following Mr Musk's $44bn Twitter takeover, many workers were either sacked by the company to cut costs, or left voluntarily.

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<b>Elon Musk reveals he would back Trump rival in 2024 US presidential election</b>

<I>Elon Musk says he would support Republican Ron DeSantis if the Florida governor runs in the 2024 US presidential election race.</I>

Mr DeSantis was re-elected with nearly 60% of the vote in the midterms and has been tipped as a potential candidate to be the next US leader.

Musk's apparent endorsement of Mr DeSantis comes as rival Republican Donald Trump has been under fire for dining with a known white supremacist.

Musk wrote on Twitter: "My preference for the 2024 presidency is someone sensible and centrist. I had hoped that would the case for the Biden administration, but have been disappointed so far;"

Asked if he would support DeSantis in 2024, the Tesla owner replied in a tweet: "Yes."

"As a reminder, I was a significant supporter of the Obama-Biden presidency and (reluctantly) voted for Biden over Trump," Musk said.

When asked previously about Musk's support, Mr DeSantis joked: "I welcome support from African-Americans, what can I say."

Musk, who is white, grew up in South Africa.

Mr Trump distanced himself on Friday from a pre-Thanksgiving dinner at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida with rapper Kanye West and white supremacist Nick Fuentes.

He has claimed he didn't know the identity of the far-right activist who was unexpectedly brought along with the rapper, NBC reports.

In a statement on his Truth social platform, Mr Trump said: "This past week, Kanye West called me to have dinner at Mar-a-Lago.

“Shortly thereafter, he unexpectedly showed up with three of his friends, whom I knew nothing about."

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/worl...sedgntp&cvid=629da5a72524493fade406f8bc86ccb6
 
Elon Musk has said Apple has halted most of its advertising on Twitter and accused the company of threatening to remove the platform from its app store.

The feud comes as many companies have halted spending on Twitter amid concerns about Mr Musk's content moderation plans for the site.

Apple has not responded to requests for comment from the BBC.

Mr Musk has said Twitter has seen a "massive" drop in revenue, blaming activists for pressuring advertisers.

In a series of Tweets on Monday, he accused Apple of "censorship" and criticised its policies, including the charge it levies on purchases made on its app store.

"Apple has mostly stopped advertising on Twitter. Do they hate free speech in America?" he said.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-63788437
 
Elon Musk Hints at Plans to Increase Character Limit for Tweets in Response to Twitter User

Twitter could expand its character limit from 280, according to a tweet by new owner Elon Musk. The world's richest man and Twitter's new CEO responded to a user on the microblogging platform requesting the higher character limit, stating that it was part of the company's plan. Twitter is also working on adding encrypted direct messages (DMs), and payment services, according a set of slides recently shared by Musk on Twitter. However, it is currently unclear whether the increased character limit will be the same as the longform tweet feature teased by the company's CEO.

On Monday, Musk responded to a Twitter user asking him to expand the 280-character limit for on tweets on Twitter to 1,000 characters. Musk responded, stating :It's on the todo list."

Twitter, which is referred to as a "microblogging service", originally had a 140-character limit for tweets, which was expanded to 280 characters in 2017. At the time, the company's blog stated that "many people Tweeted the full 280 limit because it was new and novel, but soon after behaviour normalised...We saw when people needed to use more than 140 characters, they Tweeted more easily and more often."

The platform is one of the few services that limits users' posts to a few hundred characters. Rival Facebook allow users to upload posts with thousands of characters.

Musk has shown interest in the idea of increasing the character limit on a number of occasions since his takeover of the platform, as per a report by Mashable.

On November 27, a Twitter user suggested to Musk to increase the platform's word limit from 280 to 420. "Good idea" Musk wrote in response.

Prior to that, another user had suggested "get rid of character limits," to which Musk responded: "Absolutely".

Musk recently announced another major change for the platform with its multi-coloured verification system. A new three-coloured verification check mark system would replace the previous 'Twitter Blue' service which had to be pulled off within days of its release due to rising number of accounts impersonating well-known brands and personalities while carrying the 'verified' check. The new Twitter Blue verification service will tentatively be relaunched on December 2, according to Musk.

https://www.gadgets360.com/social-n...mit-upcoming-features-longform-tweets-3563438
 
Twitter rolls back COVID misinformation policy

Nov 29 (Reuters) - Twitter Inc has rolled back a policy that was aimed at tackling misinformation related to COVID-19 on the social media platform, lending itself to the risk of a potential surge in false claims even as cases rise in China and some parts of the world.

The move also comes amid concerns of Twitter's ability to fight misinformation after it let go about half of its staff, including those involved in content moderation, under new boss Elon Musk.

"Effective November 23, 2022, Twitter is no longer enforcing the COVID-19 misleading information policy," according to an update on its blog page. The update was first reported by CNN on Tuesday.

The specific measures that Twitter will drop were not immediately clear, and the company did not immediately respond to a request to share more information.

At the onset of COVID in 2020, Twitter instated a number of measures including labels and warning messages on tweets with disputed information about the health crisis and a framework to have users remove tweets that advanced harmfully false claims related to vaccines.

Meta Platforms Inc-owned (META.O) Facebook and Alphabet Inc's YouTube services employed similar measures, which are currently in place.

Meta in July sought the opinion of its independent oversight board on changes to its current approach given the improvement in authentic information sources and general awareness around COVID.

Early this year, Twitter said that since March 2021 it had stopped enforcing a "civic integrity policy" related to lies about the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

Billionaire Musk took over Twitter on Oct. 27, paying $44 billion for the company, and has moved quickly to initiate a number of changes to product and staff. Musk said on Oct. 29 he would set up a content moderation council with "widely diverse viewpoints".

Reuters
 
The European Union has reportedly threatened to ban Twitter unless Elon Musk abides by its strict content moderation rules.

The warning, which has been reported by The Financial Times, could be the start of a regulatory battle over the future of the social media platform across Europe.

EU industry chief Thierry Breton made the threat during a video meeting with Musk on Wednesday, the news outlet said, citing people with knowledge of the conversation.

Breton told the world's richest man he must adhere to a checklist of rules which are set out in the EU's new Digital Services Act.

According to the report, these include a requirement to ditch an "arbitrary" approach to reinstating banned users and to agree to an "extensive independent audit" of the platform by next year.

The landmark law aims to set the global standard for how tech giants must police content on the internet.

In a readout of the conversation provided by Breton, he told Musk: "There is still huge work ahead, as Twitter will have to implement transparent user policies, significantly reinforce content moderation and protect freedom of speech, tackle disinformation with resolve, and limit targeted advertising."

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MUSK SAYS TWITTER CLASH WITH APPLE A ‘MISUNDERSTANDING’

Twitter owner Elon Musk said he met with Apple chief Tim Cook on Wednesday and “resolved the misunderstanding” that prompted him to declare war on the iPhone maker’s App Store.

“Among other things, we resolved the misunderstanding about Twitter potentially being removed from the App Store,” Musk tweeted.

“Tim was clear that Apple never considered doing so.”

Musk also tweeted a video clip of “Apple’s beautiful HQ” in Cupertino, California, noting that he had had a “good conversation” with Cook.

Apple did not reply to AFP requests for comment.

The world’s richest person opened fire on the planet’s most valuable company early this week over fees and rules at the App Store, saying Apple had threatened to oust his recently acquired social media platform.

The billionaire CEO had tweeted that Apple “threatened to withhold Twitter from its App Store, but won’t tell us why.”

Apple, which has not issued a public statement on the matter, typically tells developers if fixes need to be implemented in apps to conform to App Store policies.

Analysts told AFP the clash may have came down to money, with Musk irked that the App Store takes a commission on transactions such as subscriptions.

Musk has delayed the relaunch of the Twitter Blue subscription tier intended to have users pay for perks such as account verification check marks.

Twitter rolled out Blue early in November, but pulled the plug after impersonators paid for check marks to appear legitimate in what former head of safety and security Yoel Roth referred to as “a disaster.”

Both Apple and Google also require social networking services on their app stores to have effective systems for moderating harmful or abusive content.

But since taking over Twitter last month, Musk has cut around half of Twitter’s workforce, including many employees tasked with fighting disinformation, while an unknown number of others have quit.

He has also reinstated previously banned accounts, including that of former president Donald Trump.

Describing himself as a “free speech absolutist,” Musk believes that all content permitted by law should be allowed on Twitter, and has described his actions as a “revolution against online censorship in America.”

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Twitter Users May Witness Dip in Followers as Elon Musk Has New Plans for Spams

If you witness a drop in your follower count on Twitter, then fret not. Twitter's new boss Elon Musk is working on "purging a lot" of spam/scam accounts. On Thursday, Musk took to his Twitter account and shared the particular update with everyone.

He tweeted, "Twitter is purging a lot of spam/scam accounts right now, so you may see your follower count drop."

Musk is also planning to up Twitter's character limit from 280 to 1000.

A few days ago, a social media user tagged Musk and tweeted, " Idea on expanding character limit to 1000."

In response, Musk wrote, "It's on the to-do list."

The character limit has been one of the prime differences between Twitter and other social media services. Musk has shown interest in the idea of increasing the character limit on a number of occasions since his takeover of the platform, as per a report by Mashable. On November 27, a Twitter user suggested to Musk to increase the platform's word limit from 280 to 420.

"Good idea" Musk wrote in response. Prior to that, another user had suggested: "get rid of character limits."

"Absolutely", the multi-billionaire responded.

Now, we have to wait and see when Musk finally makes the changes regarding the character limit.

Another change announced by Tesla CEO Musk for the microblogging site is the inclusion of a multi-coloured verification system. As per Musk's plans, Twitter will introduce a new three-coloured verification checkmark system which will replace the previous 'Twitter Blue' service. The new Twitter Blue verification service will tentatively be relaunched on December 2, according to Musk.

Last month, Musk stated that the new user signups to the social media platform have reached an "all-time high", while the billionaire struggles with a mass exodus of advertisers and users fleeing to other platforms. Musk, in his tweet, mentioned that the signups on the microblogging site have reached an average of over two million per day as of November 16.

https://www.gadgets360.com/social-n...r-follower-count-drop-plans-spam-bots-3569520
 
Twitter Under Elon Musk Leaning on Automation to Moderate Content Against Hate Speech

Elon Musk's Twitter is leaning heavily on automation to moderate content, doing away with certain manual reviews and favoring restrictions on distribution rather than removing certain speech outright, its new head of trust and safety told Reuters.

Twitter is also more aggressively restricting abuse-prone hashtags and search results in areas including child exploitation, regardless of potential impacts on "benign uses" of those terms, said Twitter Vice President of Trust and Safety Product Ella Irwin.

"The biggest thing that's changed is the team is fully empowered to move fast and be as aggressive as possible," Irwin said on Thursday, in the first interview a Twitter executive has given since Musk's acquisition of the social media company in late October.

Her comments come as researchers are reporting a surge in hate speech on the social media service, after Musk announced an amnesty for accounts suspended under the company's previous leadership that had not broken the law or engaged in "egregious spam."

The company has faced pointed questions about its ability and willingness to moderate harmful and illegal content since Musk slashed half of Twitter's staff and issued an ultimatum to work long hours that resulted in the loss of hundreds more employees.

And advertisers, Twitter's main revenue source, have fled the platform over concerns about brand safety.

On Friday, Musk vowed "significant reinforcement of content moderation and protection of freedom of speech" in a meeting with France President Emmanuel Macron.

Irwin said Musk encouraged the team to worry less about how their actions would affect user growth or revenue, saying safety was the company's top priority. "He emphasizes that every single day, multiple times a day," she said.

The approach to safety Irwin described at least in part reflects an acceleration of changes that were already being planned since last year around Twitter's handling of hateful conduct and other policy violations, according to former employees familiar with that work.

One approach, captured in the industry mantra "freedom of speech, not freedom of reach," entails leaving up certain tweets that violate the company's policies but barring them from appearing in places like the home timeline and search.

Twitter has long deployed such "visibility filtering" tools around misinformation and had already incorporated them into its official hateful conduct policy before the Musk acquisition. The approach allows for more freewheeling speech while cutting down on the potential harms associated with viral abusive content.

The number of tweets containing hateful content on Twitter rose sharply in the week before Musk tweeted on November 23 that impressions, or views, of hateful speech were declining, according to the Center for Countering Digital Hate – in one example of researchers pointing to the prevalence of such content, while Musk touts a reduction in visibility.

Tweets containing words that were anti-Black that week were triple the number seen in the month before Musk took over, while tweets containing a gay slur were up 31%, the researchers said.

'More risks, move fast'

Irwin, who joined the company in June and previously held safety roles at other companies including Amazon.com and Google, pushed back on suggestions that Twitter did not have the resources or willingness to protect the platform.

She said layoffs did not significantly impact full-time employees or contractors working on what the company referred to as its "Health" divisions, including in "critical areas" like child safety and content moderation.

Two sources familiar with the cuts said that more than 50 percent of the Health engineering unit was laid off. Irwin did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the assertion, but previously denied that the Health team was severely impacted by layoffs.

She added that the number of people working on child safety had not changed since the acquisition, and that the product manager for the team was still there. Irwin said Twitter backfilled some positions for people who left the company, though she declined to provide specific figures for the extent of the turnover.

She said Musk was focused on using automation more, arguing that the company had in the past erred on the side of using time- and labor-intensive human reviews of harmful content.

"He's encouraged the team to take more risks, move fast, get the platform safe," she said.

On child safety, for instance, Irwin said Twitter had shifted toward automatically taking down tweets reported by trusted figures with a track record of accurately flagging harmful posts.

Carolina Christofoletti, a threat intelligence researcher at TRM Labs who specializes in child sexual abuse material, said she has noticed Twitter recently taking down some content as fast as 30 seconds after she reports it, without acknowledging receipt of her report or confirmation of its decision.

In the interview on Thursday, Irwin said Twitter took down about 44,000 accounts involved in child safety violations, in collaboration with cybersecurity group Ghost Data.

Twitter is also restricting hashtags and search results frequently associated with abuse, like those aimed at looking up "teen" pornography. Past concerns about the impact of such restrictions on permitted uses of the terms were gone, she said.

The use of "trusted reporters" was "something we've discussed in the past at Twitter, but there was some hesitancy and frankly just some delay," said Irwin.

"I think we now have the ability to actually move forward with things like that," she said.

https://www.gadgets360.com/social-n...tomation-moderate-content-hate-speech-3574276
 
Elon Musk Introduces ‘Live Tweeting’ Feature Amid Ongoing Plans for Twitter

Twitter CEO Elon Musk, on Saturday, added a new feature 'live tweeting' and now it is currently active on the platform.

Author Matt Taibbi becomes the first user to use this new feature with his cryptic tweet "Thread: THE TWITTER FILES"

Taking to Twitter, Musk wrote, "Here we go!!" with popcorn emoticons.

Earlier, he tweeted, "We're double-checking some facts, so probably start live tweeting in about 40 mins."

Griftopia writer followed his first tweet which reads, "Thread: THE TWITTER FILES", "What you're about to read is the first installment in a series, based upon thousands of internal documents obtained by sources at Twitter."

He added, "The "Twitter Files" tell an incredible story from inside one of the world's largest and most influential social media platforms. It is a Frankensteinian tale of a human-built mechanism grown out the control of its designer."

Twitter's new boss is also working on "purging a lot" of spam/scam accounts.

On Thursday, Musk took to his Twitter account and shared the word limit update with everyone. He tweeted, "Twitter is purging a lot of spam/scam accounts right now, so you may see your follower count drop."

Musk is also planning to up Twitter's character limit from 280 to 1000.

A few days ago, a social media user tagged Musk and tweeted, " Idea on explanding character limit to 1000."

In response, Musk wrote, "It's on the todo list."

The character limit has been one of the prime differences between Twitter and other social media services.Musk has shown interest in the idea of increasing the character limit on a number of occasions since his takeover of the platform, as per a report by Mashable. On November 27, a Twitter user suggested to Musk to increase the platform's word limit from 280 to 420.

"Good idea" Musk wrote in response. Prior to that, another user had suggested "get rid of character limits."

"Absolutely", the multi-billionaire responded.

Now it remains to be seen when Musk finally makes the changes regarding character limit.

https://www.gadgets360.com/social-n...tter-live-tweeting-feature-introduced-3574214
 
Musk says 'possible' that Twitter gave preference to leftists during Brazil election

SAO PAULO, Dec 3 (Reuters) - Twitter owner Elon Musk said on Saturday he thought it was "possible" that personnel at the social media firm gave preference to left-wing candidates during Brazil's election this year, without providing evidence.

Musk completed his acquisition of Twitter on Oct. 27, just days before Brazil's presidential second round runoff vote, when far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro was defeated by leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

"I've seen a lot of concerning tweets about the recent Brazil election," Musk wrote on Twitter when asked by a user about elections possibly "handled" by the company's previous management.

"If those tweets are accurate, it's possible that Twitter personnel gave preference to left wing candidates," added the billionaire.

Bolsonaro earlier this year hosted Musk at a meeting in the Brazilian state of Sao Paulo, when he called the U.S. billionaire's takeover of Twitter a "breath of hope" and dubbed him a "legend of liberty".

Both Lula and Bolsonaro widely used Twitter during their campaigns. Some Bolsonaro allies - including the most-voted candidate for the lower house of Congress, Nikolas Ferreira - had their accounts suspended by court orders after the second round for questioning the election results.

Reuters
 
Elon Musk Claims He Faces "Quite Significant" Risk Of Being Assassinated

Twitter's new owner Elon Musk on Saturday claimed that the risk of something bad happening to him or even literally being shot at is "quite significant". In a two-hour-long audio chat on Twitter Spaces, Mr Musk stated that he "definitely" wouldn't be doing any open-air car parades.

"Frankly the risk of something bad happening to me, or even literally being shot, is quite significant," he said, adding, "It's not that hard to kill somebody if you wanted to, so hopefully they don't, and fate smiles upon the situation with me and it does not happen ... There's definitely some risk there."

Further, during the discussion, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO spoke about the importance of free speech and his future plan for Twitter. He said that "at the end of the day, we just want to have a future where we're not oppressed. (Where) our speech is not suppressed, and we can say what we want to say without fear of reprisals".

"As long as you're not really causing harm to somebody else, then you should be allowed to say what you want," Mr Musk added.

The tech billionaire also stated that throughout history, free speech has been "highly unusual, not common. So we have to fight really hard to keep that because it's such a rare thing and it's by no means something that's default".

"Controlled speech is the default, not free speech," he said.

Notably, Mr Musk's discussion on Twitter Spaces came a day after journalist Matt Taibbi published internal communications among Twitter's top brass, showing the platform suspended and censored users who commented on the New York Post's Hunter Biden laptop story. Mr Musk claimed that the files show Twitter "was acting like an arm" of the Democratic National Committee in the lead-up to the 2020 presidential elections.

He also teased the release of more files in the near future and said, "We're just gonna put all the information out there and try to get a clean slate we will be iteratively better and it will force other media companies to also be more truthful or else they'll lose their readership".

But during the Twitter Spaces chat, Mr Musk also acknowledged that the so-called "Twitter Files" release had included some missteps, including a few cases which he thinks should have excluded some email addresses.

NDTV
 
Elon Musk Reacts To Rapper Kanye West's "Half-Chinese, Genetic Hybrid" Dig

Rapper Kanye West saying he believes Elon Musk could be "half Chinese" and a "genetic hybrid" evoked a mellowed-down response. "I take that as a compliment!" Musk tweeted this morning on the remarks of West, whose Twitter account was suspended again last week.

The rapper's Twitter account was reinstated just two months ago after Musk took over the company. He was earlier suspended over his anti-Semitic tweets while the latest action was due to the violation of the platform's rules.

The platform suspended him last Friday after it deleted his post featuring a Swastika symbol used by the Nazis, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

In response, West said on Instagram tens of Elon Musks were probably made and the Tesla CEO was the "first genetic hybrid that stuck".

"Am I the only one who thinks Elon could be half-Chinese? Have you ever seen his pics as a child? Take a Chinese genius and mate them with South African supermodel and we have an Elon," said West, who had changed his name to Ye.

"I say an Elon because they probably made 10 to 30 Elons and he is the first genetic hybrid that stuck...Well let's not forget about Obama," he added.

Responding to a user who asked for West to be "fixed", Musk said he tried his best to do that.

"I tried my best. Despite that, he again violated our rule against incitement to violence. Account will be suspended." Musk tweeted.

NDTV
 
Elon Musk Converts Several Rooms At Twitter Headquarters Into Bedrooms For Employees

Twitter's new boss has converted several rooms in the office into small sleeping quarters at the Twitter headquarters in San Francisco, according to a report by Forbes. The rooms features unmade mattresses, drab curtains and giant conference-room telepresence monitors. That's not all, one of the rooms has a bright orange carpeting, a wooden bedside table, a queen bed, replete with a table lamp and two office armchairs.

One source at Twitter shared with Forbes that no announcement or context was provided to employees, and it was presumed that the beds are for remaining "hardcore" staffers who can stay and work overnight at the office. "It's not a good look. It's yet another unspoken sign of disrespect. There is no discussion. Just like, beds showed up," a source said.

According to the portal, there are around four to eight bedroom pods per floor and they look comfortable.

Last month, Musk gave hundreds of Twitter employees an ultimatum that staffers sign up for "long hours at high intensity," or leave. The new owner has fired at least half of Twitter's employees, and several left because of the hardcore work culture.

Some twitter employees filmed a countdown on getting fired from the Boston office after they refused to sign onto Elon Musk's "hardcore."

In a viral video, former Twitter employee Matt Miller and his colleagues counted down till the moment they got fired. The group did a new year's-style countdown till they lost access to the company's portals. "It's been a ride," Mr Miller wrote in the caption of the Twitter post.

However, even amidst the latest twist in the long saga of Twitter under Mr Musk's control, the "Chief Twit" didn't seem to be worried. "The best people are staying, so I'm not super worried," Mr Musk tweeted.

Notably, ever since the tech billionaire took over Twitter last month, he fired about 50% of the staff, scraped a work-from-home policy and imposed long hours.

NDTV
 
Elon Musk's Medical Device Firm Neuralink Faces Federal Probe Over Animal Tests

Elon Musk's Neuralink, a medical device company, is under federal investigation for potential animal-welfare violations amid internal staff complaints that its animal testing is being rushed, causing needless suffering and deaths, according to documents reviewed by Reuters and sources familiar with the investigation and company operations.

Neuralink Corp is developing a brain implant it hopes will help paralyzed people walk again and cure other neurological ailments. The federal probe, which has not been previously reported, was opened in recent months by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Inspector General at the request of a federal prosecutor, according to two sources with knowledge of the investigation. The probe, one of the sources said, focuses on violations of the Animal Welfare Act, which governs how researchers treat and test some animals.

The investigation has come at a time of growing employee dissent about Neuralink's animal testing, including complaints that pressure from CEO Musk to accelerate development has resulted in botched experiments, according to a Reuters review of dozens of Neuralink documents and interviews with more than 20 current and former employees. Such failed tests have had to be repeated, increasing the number of animals being tested and killed, the employees say. The company documents include previously unreported messages, audio recordings, emails, presentations and reports.

Musk and other Neuralink executives did not respond to requests for comment.

Reuters could not determine the full scope of the federal investigation or whether it involved the same alleged problems with animal testing identified by employees in Reuters interviews. A spokesperson for the USDA inspector general declined to comment. U.S. regulations don't specify how many animals companies can use for research, and they give significant leeway to scientists to determine when and how to use animals in experiments. Neuralink has passed all USDA inspections of its facilities, regulatory filings show.

In all, the company has killed about 1,500 animals, including more than 280 sheep, pigs and monkeys, following experiments since 2018, according to records reviewed by Reuters and sources with direct knowledge of the company's animal-testing operations. The sources characterized that figure as a rough estimate because the company does not keep precise records on the number of animals tested and killed. Neuralink has also conducted research using rats and mice.

The total number of animal deaths does not necessarily indicate that Neuralink is violating regulations or standard research practices. Many companies routinely use animals in experiments to advance human health care, and they face financial pressure to quickly bring products to market. The animals are typically killed when experiments are completed, often so they can be examined post-mortem for research purposes.

But current and former Neuralink employees say the number of animal deaths is higher than it needs to be for reasons related to Musk's demands to speed research. Through company discussions and documents spanning several years, along with employee interviews, Reuters identified four experiments involving 86 pigs and two monkeys that were marred in recent years by human errors. The mistakes weakened the experiments' research value and required the tests to be repeated, leading to more animals being killed, three of the current and former staffers said. The three people attributed the mistakes to a lack of preparation by a testing staff working in a pressure-cooker environment.

One employee, in a message seen by Reuters, wrote an angry missive earlier this year to colleagues about the need to overhaul how the company organizes animal surgeries to prevent "hack jobs." The rushed schedule, the employee wrote, resulted in under-prepared and over-stressed staffers scrambling to meet deadlines and making last-minute changes before surgeries, raising risks to the animals.

Musk has pushed hard to accelerate Neuralink's progress, which depends heavily on animal testing, current and former employees said. Earlier this year, the chief executive sent staffers a news article about Swiss researchers who developed an electrical implant that helped a paralyzed man to walk again. "We could enable people to use their hands and walk again in daily life!" he wrote to staff at 6:37 a.m. Pacific Time on Feb. 8. Ten minutes later, he followed up: "In general, we are simply not moving fast enough. It is driving me nuts!"

On several occasions over the years, Musk has told employees to imagine they had a bomb strapped to their heads in an effort to get them to move faster, according to three sources who repeatedly heard the comment. On one occasion a few years ago, Musk told employees he would trigger a "market failure" at Neuralink unless they made more progress, a comment perceived by some employees as a threat to shut down operations, according to a former staffer who heard his comment.

Five people who've worked on Neuralink's animal experiments told Reuters they had raised concerns internally. They said they had advocated for a more traditional testing approach, in which researchers would test one element at a time in an animal study and draw relevant conclusions before moving on to more animal tests. Instead, these people said, Neuralink launches tests in quick succession before fixing issues in earlier tests or drawing complete conclusions. The result: More animals overall are tested and killed, in part because the approach leads to repeated tests.

One former employee who asked management several years ago for more deliberate testing was told by a senior executive it wasn't possible given Musk's demands for speed, the employee said. Two people told Reuters they left the company over concerns about animal research.

The problems with Neuralink's testing have raised questions internally about the quality of the resulting data, three current or former employees said. Such problems could potentially delay the company's bid to start human trials, which Musk has said the company wants to do within the next six months. They also add to a growing list of headaches for Musk, who is facing criticism of his management of Twitter, which he recently acquired for $44 billion. Musk also continues to run electric carmaker Tesla Inc and rocket company SpaceX.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is in charge of reviewing the company's applications for approval of its medical device and associated trials. The company's treatment of animals during research, however, is regulated by the USDA under the Animal Welfare Act. The FDA didn't immediately comment.

MISSED DEADLINES, BOTCHED EXPERIMENTS

Musk's impatience with Neuralink has grown as the company, which launched in 2016, has missed his deadlines on several occasions to win regulatory approval to start clinical trials in humans, according to company documents and interviews with eight current and former employees.

Some Neuralink rivals are having more success. Synchron, which was launched in 2016 and is developing a different implant with less ambitious goals for medical advances, received FDA approval to start human trials in 2021. The company's device has allowed paralyzed people to text and type by thinking alone. Synchron has also conducted tests on animals, but it has killed only about 80 sheep as part of its research, according to studies of the Synchron implant reviewed by Reuters. Musk approached Synchron about a potential investment, Reuters reported in August.

Synchron declined to comment.

In some ways, Neuralink treats animals quite well compared to other research facilities, employees said in interviews, echoing public statements by Musk and other executives. Company leaders have boasted internally of building a "Monkey Disneyland" in the company's Austin, Texas facility where lab animals can roam, a former employee said. In the company's early years, Musk told employees he wanted the monkeys at his San Francisco Bay Area operation to live in a "monkey Taj Mahal," said a former employee who heard the comment. Another former employee recalled Musk saying he disliked using animals for research but wanted to make sure they were "the happiest animals" while alive.

The animals have fared less well, however, when used in the company's research, current and former employees say.

The first complaints about the company's testing involved its initial partnership with University of California, Davis, to conduct the experiments. In February, an animal rights group, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, filed a complaint with the USDA accusing the Neuralink-UC Davis project of botching surgeries that killed monkeys and publicly released its findings. The group alleged that surgeons used the wrong surgical glue twice, which led to two monkeys suffering and ultimately dying, while other monkeys had different complications from the implants.

The company has acknowledged it killed six monkeys, on the advice of USC Davis veterinary staff, because of health problems caused by experiments. It called the issue with the glue a "complication" from the use of an "FDA-approved product." In response to a Reuters inquiry, a USC Davis spokesperson shared a previous public statement defending its research with Neuralink and saying it followed all laws and regulations.

A federal prosecutor in the Northern District of California referred the animal rights group's complaint to the USDA Inspector General, which has since launched a formal probe, according to a source with direct knowledge of the investigation. USDA investigators then inquired about the allegations involving the UC Davis monkey research, according to two sources familiar with the matter and emails and messages reviewed by Reuters.

The probe is concerned with the testing and treatment of animals in Neuralink's own facilities, one of the sources said, without elaborating. In 2020, Neuralink brought the program in-house, and has since built its extensive facilities in California and Texas.

A spokesperson for the U.S. attorney's office for the Northern District of California declined to comment.

Delcianna Winders, director of the Animal Law and Policy Institute at the Vermont Law and Graduate School, said it is "very unusual" for the USDA inspector general to investigate animal research facilities. Winders, an animal-testing opponent who has criticized Neuralink, said the inspector general has primarily focused in recent years on dog fighting and cockfighting actions when applying the Animal Welfare Act.

'IT'S HARD ON THE LITTLE PIGGIES'

The mistakes leading to unnecessary animal deaths included one instance in 2021, when 25 out of 60 pigs in a study had devices that were the wrong size implanted in their heads, an error that could have been avoided with more preparation, according to a person with knowledge of the situation and company documents and communications reviewed by Reuters.

The mistake raised alarms among Neuralink's researchers. In May 2021, Viktor Kharazia, a scientist, wrote to colleagues that the mistake could be a "red flag" to FDA reviewers of the study, which the company planned to submit as part of its application to begin human trials. His colleagues agreed, and the experiment was repeated with 36 sheep, according to the person with knowledge of the situation. All the animals, both the pigs and the sheep, were killed after the procedures, the person said.

Kharazia did not comment in response to requests.

On another occasion, staff accidentally implanted Neuralink's device on the wrong vertebra of two different pigs during two separate surgeries, according to two sources with knowledge of the matter and documents reviewed by Reuters. The incident frustrated several employees who said the mistakes – on two separate occasions – could have easily been avoided by carefully counting the vertebrae before inserting the device.

Company veterinarian Sam Baker advised his colleagues to immediately kill one of the pigs to end her suffering.

"Based on low chance of full recovery … and her current poor psychological well-being, it was decided that euthanasia was the only appropriate course of action," Baker wrote colleagues about one of the pigs a day after the surgery, adding a broken heart emoji.

Baker did not comment on the incident.

Employees have sometimes pushed back on Musk's demands to move fast. In a company discussion several months ago, some Neuralink employees protested after a manager said that Musk had encouraged them to do a complex surgery on pigs soon. The employees resisted on the grounds that the surgery's complexity would lengthen the amount of time the pigs would be under anesthesia, risking their health and recovery. They argued they should first figure out how to cut down the time it would take to do the surgery.

"It's hard on the little piggies," one of the employees said, referring to the lengthy period under anesthesia.

In September, the company responded to employee concerns about its animal testing by holding a town hall to explain its processes. It soon after opened up the meetings to staff of its federally-mandated board that reviews the animal experiments.

Neuralink executives have said publicly that the company tests animals only when it has exhausted other research options, but documents and company messages suggest otherwise. During a Nov. 30 presentation the company broadcast on YouTube, for example, Musk said surgeries were used at a later stage of the process to confirm that the device works rather than to test early hypotheses. "We're extremely careful," he said, to make sure that testing is "confirmatory, not exploratory," using animal testing as a last resort after trying other methods.

In October, a month before Musk's comments, Autumn Sorrells, the head of animal care, ordered employees to scrub "exploration" from study titles retroactively and stop using it in the future.

Sorrells did not comment in response to requests.

Neuralink records reviewed by Reuters contained numerous references over several years to exploratory surgeries, and three people with knowledge of the company's research strongly rejected the assertion that Neuralink avoids exploratory tests on animals. Company discussions reviewed by Reuters showed several employees expressing concerns about Sorrells' request to change exploratory study descriptions, saying it would be inaccurate and misleading.

One noted that the request seemed designed to provide "better optics" for Neuralink.

NDTV
 
Elon Musk briefly loses title as world's richest person to LVMH's Arnault - Forbes

Twitter owner and Tesla (TSLA.O) boss Elon Musk briefly lost his title as the world's richest person on Wednesday, according to Forbes, following a steep drop in the value of his stake in the electric-car maker and a $44 billion bet on the social media firm.

Bernard Arnault, the chief executive of luxury brand Louis Vuitton's parent company LVMH (LVMH.PA), and his family briefly took the title as the world's richest, but were back at No. 2 with a personal wealth of $185.3 billion, according to Forbes.

Musk, who has held the top spot on the Forbes list since September 2021, has a net worth of $185.7 billion. Musk took over the title from Amazon.com (AMZN.O) founder Jeff Bezos.

Tesla shares, which have lost more than 47% in value since Musk made his offer to buy Twitter earlier this year, were down 2.7%.

Musk's net worth dropped below $200 billion earlier on Nov. 8 as investors dumped Tesla's shares on worries the top executive and largest shareholder of the world's most valuable electric-vehicle maker is more preoccupied with Twitter.

Tesla has lost nearly half its market value and Musk's net worth has dropped by about $70 billion since he bid for Twitter in April. Musk closed the deal for Twitter in October with $13 billion in loans and a $33.5 billion equity commitment.

Besides Tesla, Musk also heads rocket company SpaceX and Neuralink, a startup that is developing ultra-high bandwidth brain-machine interfaces to connect the human brain to computers.

Reuters
 
Twitter To Change Blue Badge Pricing After Apple Row: Report

Twitter Inc plans to change the pricing of its Twitter Blue subscription product to $7 from $7.99 if users pay for it through the website, and $11 if they do so through its iPhone app, the Information reported on Wednesday, citing a person briefed on the plans.

The move was likely a pushback against the 30% cut that Apple Inc takes on revenues from apps on its operating system, the report said, with lower pricing for the website likely to drive more users to that platform as opposed to signing up on their iPhones.

It did not mention whether pricing would change for the Android platform as well.

Musk, in a series of tweets last week listed various grievances with Apple, including the 30% fee the iphone maker charges software developers for in-app purchases.

He also posted a meme suggesting he was willing to "go to war" with Apple rather than paying the commission.

Musk later met Apple chief executive Tim Cook at the company's headquarters and later tweeted that the misunderstanding about Twitter being removed from Apple's app store was resolved.

Twitter and Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

NDTV
 
Elton John Quits Twitter Over "Misinformation", Elon Musk Responds

Veteran musician Elton John has decided to no longer use Twitter citing "misinformation" as the reason. The singer-songwriter shared the news in a statement posted on the microblogging site.

"All my life I've tried to use music to bring people together. Yet it saddens me to see how misinformation is now being used to divide our world," John tweeted.

"I've decided to no longer use Twitter, given their recent change in policy which will allow misinformation to flourish unchecked," he added.

The platform had announced around two weeks ago that it will no longer enforce a policy to combat misinformation about the Covid-19 pandemic.

In response to John's post, Twitter CEO Elon Musk tweeted that he hopes the singer returns to the platform soon.

"I love your music. Hope you come back. Is there any misinformation in particular that you're concerned about?" Musk wrote.

John's departure comes as Twitter continues to remain at the centre of a number of controversies, most notably antisemitic posts on the platform by Kanye West and Kyrie Irving, which were criticised by the Anti-Defamation League, Ari Emanuel, LeBron James and many others.

Other prominent personalities to quit Twitter since Musk took over the platform are Whoopi Goldberg, Jim Carrey, Shonda Rhimes, David Simon, Jamela Jamil, Trent Reznor, Gigi Hadid, Toni Braxton, Téa Leoni, Jack White, Liz Phair and Stephen Fry.*

NDTV
 
Elon Musk Threatens To Sue Twitter Employees If They Leak Confidential Information: Report

Twitter's new boss, Elon Musk is not pleased about leaks. He has issued another ultimatum to Twitter employees and told them not to share confidential information with the press otherwise there will be legal consequences. Musk has demanded that the staffers sign a pledge indicating they've understood.

According to Platformer's report, Musk wrote to employees, "As evidenced by the many detailed leaks of confidential Twitter information, a few people at our company continue to act in a manner contrary to the company's interests and in violation of their NDA."

He added, "This will be said only once: If you clearly and deliberately violate the NDA that you signed when you joined, you accept liability to the full extent of the law & Twitter will immediately seek damages."

The world's wealthiest person in the email said that occasional slips ups could be forgiven, but "sending detailed info to the media ... will receive the response it deserves."

That's not all, he also asked his employees to sign a pledge if they understood the directives and were given until 5 pm Saturday to respond.

Meanwhile, Twitter is facing a growing number of cases over the terms of those terminations -- and even a complaint that Elon Musk has illegally converted office space into bedrooms so that workers can sleep on site.

"It's very concerning that the richest man in the world thinks that he can walk all over employee rights and doesn't have to follow the law. We intend to hold him accountable," said lawyer Shannon Liss-Riordan.

Liss-Riordan is leading one such case against Twitter -- at its core, it argues that some employees are not receiving the severance and compensation promised to them prior to Musk's takeover.

NDTV
 
Elon Musk Is Now The World's Second Richest Man. New No. 1 Is...

Elon Musk, once worth as much as $340 billion, has been displaced as the world's richest person by Bernard Arnault.

Elon Musk, 51, has seen his fortune tumble by more than $100 billion since January to $168.5 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. As of 10:20 a.m. in New York, that's less than the $172.9 billion net worth of Arnault, 73, whose wealth largely derives from his 48% ownership of fashion giant LVMH.

Musk's fall from atop the rankings - the first time that's happened since he was No. 2 in September 2021 - caps a tumultuous year for the frenetic billionaire. He shocked the world in April with his offer to take Twitter private for $44 billion, in a brazen display of how the wealthiest individuals could wield their massive fortunes.

But his agreement coincided with the Federal Reserve and other central banks embarking on their most aggressive round of monetary tightening in a generation, slashing the valuations of high-flying companies like Musk's Tesla Inc. The electric carmaker's stock is down more than 50% this year.

Musk tried for months to get out of the Twitter deal, but failed. He offloaded more than $15 billion in Tesla shares - about $8.5 billion in April, then another $6.9 billion in August - to raise enough cash to fund the purchase.

Once he finalized the Twitter acquisition in October, the Bloomberg wealth index knocked $10 billion from his fortune, reflecting that shares of similar businesses have slumped since he made his bid.

Musk has pledged to turn around the social-media platform, but he faces several challenges - some of his own making. He blasted Apple Inc. and threatened to withhold Twitter from its App Store at a time when other companies were already pulling their advertising from the site.

Meanwhile, Twitter is poised to face annual interest costs that exceed a measure of its earnings for all of 2021. Musk's bankers are considering providing him with new margin loans backed by Tesla stock to replace some of the high-interest debt he layered on Twitter, Bloomberg News reported.

Arnault, the new richest person in the world, is drama-free in comparison to Musk.

Arnault has long been a mainstay near the top of the wealth rankings, but his fortune never grew at the exponential pace of US tech billionaires. Now his empire is holding up while Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and Alphabet Inc.'s Larry Page and Sergey Brin see their wealth hammered by rising interest rates.

Paris-based LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton's designer apparel, fine wines and retail business have benefited from pent-up demand unleashed when Covid-related shopping and travel restrictions were lifted in most countries. Arnault's brands cater to the affluent - from Christian Dior and Fendi to jewelers Bulgari and Tiffany & Co., and champagne house Moet & Chandon.

NDTV
 
Elon Musk sells $3.6bn of shares in electric car maker Tesla

Multi-billionaire Elon Musk has sold another 22 million shares, worth $3.58bn (£2.9bn), in the electric car maker Tesla.

The shares were sold on the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week, according to a filing with a US financial regulator.

It brings the total of Tesla stocks sold by Mr Musk over the past year to almost $40bn.

Earlier this week Mr Musk lost his position as the world's richest person.

The reason for the latest share sales has not been disclosed.

He remains Tesla's biggest shareholder with a 13.4% stake, according to financial market data provider Refinitiv.

Last month Mr Musk revealed that he had sold 19.5 million shares of Tesla worth $3.95bn, just days after completing a $44bn takeover of social media platform Twitter.

Tesla is one of the worst performing stocks among major car makers and technology companies this year, as investors worry that Mr Musk's buyout of Twitter is diverting his attention.

On Wednesday the value of Tesla shares listed on the technology-heavy Nasdaq index in New York closed below $500bn for the first time since 2020.

At the end of last year the company was worth more than $1tn but its value has slumped in recent months.

Mr Musk completed the takeover of Twitter in October and since then has focused a significant amount of his time on the business.

Mr Musk sold billions of dollars worth of Tesla shares to help fund his purchase, which helped to push the shares down.

The Twitter deal was only completed after months of legal wrangling, and some have cited the distraction of the takeover as another factor behind Tesla's share price fall.

Investors have also been concerned that demand for the company's electric cars may slow, as the economy weakens, higher borrowing costs discourage buyers and other companies boost their electric vehicle offerings.

Tesla has also been hit by recalls, as well as government probes of crashes and its autopilot feature.

This week Mr Musk lost his position as the world's richest person after a sharp drop in the value of his shares in Tesla this year.

According to both Forbes and Bloomberg, he was overtaken at the top spot by Bernard Arnault, the chief executive of luxury goods group LVMH.

Mr Musk is now worth $174bn, Mr Arnault's fortune stands at almost $191bn, according to Forbes.

BBC
 
Twitter Suspends Account That Tracked Elon Musk's Private Jet Flights

A Twitter account that tracked flights of Elon Musk's private jet was grounded on Wednesday despite the billionaire's talk of free speech.

"Well it appears @ElonJet is suspended," creator Jack Sweeney tweeted from his personal @JxckSweeney account.

The account was in action briefly later in the day, after Twitter sent out word that it updated its policy to prohibit tweets, in most cases, from giving away someone's location in real time.

"Yes I am back!" read a tweet fired off by @ElonJet, which added a link to versions of the flight tracking account at other social networks such as Instagram, Facebook and Mastodon "just in case."

A short time later attempts to reach @ElonJet, as well as Sweeney's personal Twitter account, were met with messages that both were suspended.

Musk's jet "flew from LA to Austin last night after my account was suspended on Twitter," he said in an Instagram post.

"Any account doxxing real-time location info of anyone will be suspended, as it is a physical safety violation," Musk said in a tweet.

Doxxing refers to revealing identifying information such as home address or phone number online, typically to target someone for abuse.

Tweets sharing a person's location that are "not same-day" are allowed under the tweaked policy, as are posts about being at a public event such as a concert, Twitter said.

Sweeney attracted attention with his Twitter account that tracks the movements of the billionaire's plane and even rejected Musk's offer of $5,000 to shut down @ElonJet, which had hundreds of thousands of followers.

Musk had gone public saying he would not touch the account after buying Twitter in a $44 billion deal as part of his commitment to free speech at the platform.

Flight-following websites and several Twitter accounts offer real-time views of air traffic, but that exposure draws pushback ranging from complaints to equipment seizures.

US rules require planes in designated areas be equipped with ADS-B technology that broadcasts aircraft positions using signals that relatively simple devices can pick up.

Figuring out or confirming to whom a plane actually belongs can require some sleuthing, said Sweeney, who filed a public records request with the US government in order to confirm Musk's ownership of his plane.

Suspension of the account came a day after Twitter co-founder and former chief Jack Dorsey published an online post defending the tech firm's workers, who Musk has criticized for decisions regarding content moderation.

"I'm a strong believer that any content produced by someone for the internet should be permanent until the original author chooses to delete it," Dorsey wrote.

"It should be always available and addressable. Content takedowns and suspensions should not be possible."

NDTV
 
Twitter condemned by UN and EU over reporters’ ban

The United Nations has joined the European Union in condemning Twitter's decision to suspend some journalists who cover the social media firm.

Reporters for the New York Times, CNN and the Washington Post were among those locked out of their accounts.

The UN tweeted that media freedom is "not a toy" while the EU has threatened Twitter with sanctions.

Twitter spokesman told a US tech news website the bans were related to the live sharing of location data.

Melissa Fleming, the UN's under secretary general for global communications, said she was "deeply disturbed" by reports that journalists were being "arbitrarily" suspended from Twitter.

"Media freedom is not a toy," she said. "A free press is the cornerstone of democratic societies and a key tool in the fight against harmful disinformation."

Earlier on Friday, EU commissioner Vera Jourova threatened Twitter with sanctions under Europe's new Digital Services Act which she said requires "the respect of media freedom and fundament rights".

"Elon Musk should be aware of that. There are red lines. And sanctions, soon," she added.

Mr Musk has not commented directly on the suspensions, but said in a tweet that "criticising me all day long is totally fine, but doxxing my real-time location and endangering my family is not".

He also tweeted that accounts which he claimed engaged in doxxing - a term to describe to the release of private information online about individuals - receive a temporary seven-day suspension.

"Same doxxing rules apply to 'journalists' as to everyone else," he added.

A spokesman for the New York Times called the suspensions "questionable and unfortunate".

The suspensions come after Mr Musk vowed to sue the owner of a profile that tracks his private jet.

He said a "crazy stalker" had used live location sharing to find and accost a vehicle carrying his children in Los Angeles.

But following the suspensions, the German Foreign Office warned Twitter that "press freedom cannot be switched on and off on a whim".

'A town square'

Mr Musk took control of Twitter in October in a $44bn ($36bn) deal.

When he completed his takeover, the billionaire told advertisers he bought the site because he wanted to "try to help humanity", and for "civilisation to have a digital town square".

He has made a host of changes to its moderation practices. The moves have alarmed some civil rights groups, who have accused the billionaire of taking steps that will increase hate speech, misinformation and abuse.

Any sanctions placed on Mr Musk's business over the account suspensions could be applied under the bloc's new Digital Services Act, which is currently going through the EU Parliament but could be in force by next year.

Under the terms of the proposed new law, the EU Commission will be allowed to impose fines of up to 6% of the global turnover of a firm that it finds breaks its rules.

In extreme cases, the EU could ask a court to suspend a rogue service, but only if it is "refusing to comply with important obligations and thereby endangering people's life and safety".

Matt Binder, a journalist for Mashable and one of those suspended, said he didn't know why he had been banned.

"I've been very critical of Musk in my reporting," he told the BBC. But he said that Mr Musk's claim "that everyone that got suspended was doxxing him - due to the jet tracker", was not true.

He said he had never tweeted a hyperlink to the tracker, but had mentioned the account after it had been suspended.

"Clearly the people who were suspended were handpicked, because there are literally hundreds of accounts per minute who tweeted the link."

Mr Binder, who has been on Twitter since 2008 and has been reporting on the developments at the social media site, said he was surprised at the ban on journalists.

"I knew it was a possibility but really thought he wouldn't because it would entirely wreck the facade of being a free speech platform."

Twitter's head of trust and safety, Ella Irwin, told The Verge website that bans are related to a new rule introduced on Wednesday that prohibits "live location information, including information shared on Twitter directly or links to 3rd-party URL(s) of travel routes".

"Without commenting on any specific accounts, I can confirm that we will suspend any accounts that violate our privacy policies and put other users at risk," Mrs Irwin told the outlet.

"We don't make exceptions to this policy for journalists or any other accounts."

BBC
 
"People Have Spoken": Journalists Back On Twitter After Elon Musk's Poll

San Francisco:

Elon Musk said late Friday he would reinstate the Twitter accounts of several journalists who were suspended after he accused them of endangering his family. Musk had drawn anger and warnings from the EU and UN after suspending the accounts of more than half a dozen prominent journalists from the New York Times, CNN and the Washington Post.

"The people have spoken. Accounts who doxxed my location will have their suspension lifted now," the Twitter owner tweeted.

Musk carried out a Twitter poll asking whether he should restore the suspended accounts now or in a week's time. Nearly 59 percent of the 3.69 million who took part said he should restore the accounts now.

Some of the suspended accounts appeared to have been reactivated, with former Vox journalist Aaron Rupar tweeting again.

"I was pretty bummed about getting suspended initially but quickly realized it'd be fine because I'm blessed to have an amazing online community," Rupar tweeted, thanking people for their support.

The latest controversy began when Musk on Wednesday suspended @elonjet, an account that tracked flights of his private plane.

Musk said the move was necessary after a car in Los Angeles carrying one of his children was followed by "a crazy stalker" and seemed to blame the tracking of his jet for the incident.

Some of the journalists had reported on the affair, including tweets linking to the suspended @elonjet account, which Musk said amounted to offering "assassination coordinates" against him and his family.

In a chat hosted live on Twitter, Musk had provided no evidence for his claim but told some of the suspended reporters that on Twitter "everyone's going to be treated the same... they're not special because you're a journalist."

Pressed further on his allegations, Musk ended the conversation. Twitter Spaces, the feature where the chat took place, was then suspended.

Musk's move to suspend the journalists' accounts had drawn sharp criticism from media organizations, the European Union and UN.

"News about arbitrary suspension of journalists on Twitter is worrying," EU commissioner Vera Jourova posted on Twitter, warning the influential platform could face hefty fines through European laws.

"Elon Musk should be aware of that. There are red lines. And sanctions, soon," she added.

The spokesman for UN chief Antonio Guterres called it a "dangerous precedent at a time when journalists all over the world are facing censorship, physical threats and even worse."

Controversies

Twitter has lurched from one controversy to the next since Musk took control after paying $44 billion, mainly by selling shares in Tesla, his successful electric car company.

The billionaire's talk of unfettered speech has scared off major advertisers and caught the attention of regulators.

Musk has reinstated the account of former US president Donald Trump and lashed out against the outgoing key advisor for the US response to the Covid-19 pandemic, Anthony Fauci, a frequent target of vitriol in right-wing media.

CNN has reported that Twitter's former head of trust and safety fled his home after baseless attacks on Twitter content moderation, endorsed by Musk.

Meanwhile, a purge initiated by Musk at Twitter left more than half of its 7,500 employees out of work, and now many of them are taking the SpaceX and Tesla tycoon to court.

Musk at one point signaled he was going to war with Apple over the App Store, only to later tweet that it was a "misunderstanding."

Market tracker Insider Intelligence forecast that Twitter would experience an exodus of users.

"There won't be one catastrophic event that ends Twitter," said Insider Intelligence analyst Jasmine Enberg.

"Instead, users will start to leave the platform next year as they grow frustrated with technical issues and the proliferation of hateful or other unsavory content."

NDTV
 
Elon Musk's Mother Reports "Gun With 2 Bullets" Threat To The Billionaire

Days after Elon Musk revealed that a person followed his 2-year-old son, Mr Musk's mother Maye Musk reported a “gun with two bullets' ' threat to the tech billionaire. Reacting to his mother's report, Elon Musk tweeted, “It's fine.” This came after Larry Elder, in a tweet, said, “If Adolph Hitler, Mao Tse Tung and Elon Musk were walking down the street, and you gave an American lefty a gun with two bullets—he'd put both in Elon Musk.”

Calling out Mr Elder, Maye Musk said, “What a hateful and threatening tweet. I hope you don't have children or any family because they would hang their heads in shame.”

Elon Musk too shared his thoughts on a “gun with two bullets” threat in his signature style. Replying to Mr Elder, the Tesla boss wrote, “And, miss both times.”

Earlier, Elon Musk had stated his son, who was travelling in a car, was followed by a “crazy stalker” at night. Mr Musk added that he would take legal action against Jack Sweeney, a university student behind the now-suspended Twitter account that tracked the billionaire's private jet flights.

Giving a warning, Mr Musk said, “Any account doxxing real-time location info of anyone will be suspended, as it is a physical safety violation. This includes posting links to sites with real-time location info. Posting locations someone travelled to on a slightly delayed basis isn't a safety problem, so is ok.”

In a follow-up post, Mr Musk wrote, “Last night, a car carrying lil X in LA was followed by a crazy stalker (thinking it was me), who later blocked the car from moving & climbed onto the hood. Legal action is being taken against Sweeney and organisations who supported harm to my family.”

Elon Musk also shared a video of the stalker and asked if anyone could recognise him.

NDTV
 
Twitter Users Vote In Favour For Elon Musk To Step Down As Its CEO

Twitter Inc. users voted for Elon Musk to step down from his role as head of the social platform in a poll the billionaire entrepreneur said he would respect, a sharp rebuke of his chaotic tenure less than two months since he took over.

About 58% of the 17.5 million votes cast were in favor of Musk stepping back from the leadership role, despite there being no clear successor.

If Musk heeds the results, it would mark the end of 53 chaotic days at the helm, which has involved dismissing top executives, eliminatingroughly half of its employees and spookingadvertisers.

Musk, who's also chief executive officer of Tesla Inc. and Space Exploration Technologies Corp., has dedicated much of his time since acquiring Twitter on Oct. 27 to the social media service, drawing criticism for his abrupt policy changes and neglect of his other businesses. The stock of Tesla, his most valuable holding, has sunk by about a third since the acquisition.

It is not the first time Musk has put major corporate decisions to Twitter users. He recently conducted a poll of his followers on whether to reinstate Donald Trump's Twitter account, and allowed him back the following day.

There is no clear replacement at Twitter, with almost all of the top rank executives having been fired or resigned over the past few months. Musk added in later tweets that "No one wants the job who can actually keep Twitter alive. There is no successor," and "and it has been in the fast lane to bankruptcy since May."

The threat that Twitter might veer into financial difficulties has been constant during Musk's tenure, who in his first address to employees in November said bankruptcy was a possibility if it doesn't start generating more cash. The company has almost $13 billion of debt that's now in the hands of seven Wall Street banks that have been unable to offload it to investors.

Musk was in Qatar to watch the World Cup final match between Argentina and France and tweeted out his poll after the game's conclusion. The billionaire has been looking for new investors at $54.20 a share, the same price he paid when he took the company private for $44 billion in October.

Saudi prince Alwaleed bin Talal Al Saud is the second largest investor in Twitter behind Musk, while the Qatar Investment Authority invested $375 million in the social media platform.

Musk originally agreed to acquire Twitter in April but then spent months trying unsuccessfully to get out of the deal. After taking the top role, he indicated that he'd only be in charge of Twitter for a limited time to complete the organizational overhaul he thought it needed to prosper, and complained of having "too much work" and sleeping at Twitter's San Francisco office while enforcing his radical changes.

Tesla shares gained 4.8% in US premarket trading on Monday. Shares in the carmaker have slumped 57% this year amid concerns the chaotic takeover of Twitter has distracted Musk from the firm that propelled him to the richest person in the world - a title he lost last week to luxury titan Bernard Arnault.

NDTV
 
Elon Musk Actively Searching For New Twitter CEO: Report

Billionaire Elon Musk is actively searching for a new chief executive officer for Twitter Inc, CNBC reported on Tuesday, citing sources.

Twitter did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

NDTV
 
Elon Musk to quit as Twitter CEO when replacement found

Elon Musk has said he will resign as Twitter's chief executive officer when he finds someone "foolish enough to take the job".

The billionaire promised earlier to abide by the result of a Twitter poll which saw 57.5% of users vote "yes" to him quitting the role.

He says he will still run the software and servers teams after his replacement is found.

Changes on the platform since his takeover have been much criticised.

Since Mr Musk bought the social media site in October, he has fired about half of its staff and attempted a rollout of Twitter's paid-for verification feature before putting it on pause. The feature was relaunched last week.

Civil liberties groups have also criticised his approach to content moderation, accusing him of taking steps that will increase hate speech and misinformation.

On Friday, Mr Musk was condemned by the United Nations and European Union over Twitter's decision to suspend some journalists who cover the social media firm.

The UN tweeted that media freedom was "not a toy", while the EU threatened Twitter with sanctions.

This is the first time the multibillionaire has responded to the poll launched on Sunday asking if he should resign. Finding someone to take over the social media platform may be a challenge, according to Mr Musk. Some people speculate Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey could also come back to run the company. He resigned as chief executive in November 2021.

"No one wants the job who can actually keep Twitter alive," he tweeted following the poll.

Other names mentioned as possible replacements include Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's former chief operating office, Sriram Krishnan, engineer and close confidante to Mr Musk, and Jared Kushner, US former presidential adviser and son-in-law of Donald Trump.

In the past Mr Musk has obeyed Twitter polls. He is fond of quoting the Latin phrase vox populi, vox dei which roughly means "the voice of the people is the voice of God".

In response to a tweet saying Twitter Blue subscribers "should be the only ones that can vote in policy related polls. We actually have skin in the game", Mr Musk said: "Good point, Twitter will make that change."

Twitter's paid-for verification feature was rolled out for a second time last week after its launch was paused. The service costs $8 per month, or $11 for people using the Twitter app on Apple devices, and gives subscribers a "blue tick".

Previously a blue tick was used as a badge of authenticity and was free.

For weeks, investors have called on Mr Musk to step down from running the social media platform, saying he has been distracted from properly running Tesla.

Shares in the the electric car company have plummeted more than 65% over the past year.

Mr Musk sold billions of dollars worth of Tesla shares to help fund his purchase, which helped to push the shares down.

"Finally a good step in the right direction to end this painful nightmare situation for Tesla investors," said Dan Ives from investment firm Wedbush Securities after Mr Musk's tweet on Tuesday.

BBC
 
World's Most Popular YouTuber Asks If He Can Be Twitter CEO. Musk Responds

Jimmy 'MrBeast' Donaldson, the most subscribed YouTuber in the world, today asked if he could be the CEO of Twitter. The YouTuber's statement comes days after Twitter CEO Elon Musk ran a poll asking users if he should remain at the helm of the micro-blogging platform.

In the poll results which were posted on Monday, 57 percent of voters, or 10 million votes, favored Musk stepping down just eight weeks after he took ownership of the company for $44 billion.

Musk, sharing the poll results, said that he will step down as the chief executive of Twitter once he finds a suitable replacement. "I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job! After that, I will just run the software & servers teams," the world's second-richest person wrote on Twitter.

Mr Donaldson today in a tweet asked if he could run the social media company. "Can I be the new Twitter CEO?" he tweeted.

Responding to the 24-year-old YouTuber's tweet, Musk said, "It's not out of the question."

Since he took the helm of Twitter in October, Musk has turned to polls to create brand new social media policy on the fly, in spite of critics stating that the polls were easily gamed and unrepresentative of Twitter's user base.

He has also picked fights with the media and leaked his own employees' private messages and emails. He sparred with Apple, reinstated former President Donald Trump's account based on the results of a Twitter poll, and recently started discussing the possibility of his own assassination.

NDTV
 
Twitter's "New CEO" Thanks Elon Musk For "Taking A Chance On Her"

A day after billionaire Elon Musk declared, as dramatically as his bid to buy the microblogging platform, that he would step down as chief executive of Twitter Inc, a Twitter user has gone viral for her satirical thread on becoming the company's next CEO.

Bess Kalb, an Emmy-nominated comedy writer, shared a five-post thread on Twitter thanking Elon Musk for "taking a chance" on her. "Can finally announce: I am humbled, honored, and frankly still in shock to be the new CEO of Twitter," she wrote, tagging the world's second richest person.

Her post doesn't immediately declare or come across as parody, which would be much to Elon Musk's ire, especially considering the account suspension rampage he went on after several accounts impersonated him.

Twitter users engaging in impersonation without clearly specifying it as a "parody" account will be permanently suspended without a warning, he had said.

As the thread goes on, the parodic intent of the tweet is clear as she lampoons Elon Musk. "He is so much more than the apartheid profiteer heir of an emerald mine owner who openly hates him, he is a man whose current only friend is Jared Kushner. I know that with his level of know-how and unimpeachable foresight, Elon Musk will definitely go to Mars in his lifetime," Ms Kalb wrote.

She went on, "Though he can only conceive children in a laboratory setting no matter how many women he impregnates and his facelifts are melting, I will show up for Twitter the way he shows up year after year for the Met Gala despite turning his nose up at "Media Elites" when they mock him."

"I am also finally able to disclose, Elon made over $68,000 from his flagship innovation Twitter Blue! We at Twitter thank him for that smart and lucrative idea and wish him the best in his future projects. We know they will be great and only explode a handful of people," she wrote in conclusion.

Elon Musk said on Tuesday that he will step down as chief executive of Twitter Inc once he finds a replacement, but will still run some key divisions of the social media platform. "I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job! After that, I will just run the software & servers teams," Mr Musk wrote on Twitter.

This is the first time Mr Musk has mentioned stepping down as chief of the social media platform, after Twitter users voted for him to resign in a poll, which the billionaire launched on Sunday evening.

In the poll, 57.5% of around 17.5 million people voted "yes." Elon Musk had said on Sunday he would abide by the results. He has not provided a time frame for when he will step down and no successor has been named.

NDTV
 
Elon Musk Becomes First Person Ever To Lose $200 Billion

Elon Musk was the second person ever to amass a personal fortune of more than $200 billion, breaching that threshold in January 2021, months after Jeff Bezos.

The Tesla Inc. chief executive officer has now achieved a first of his own: becoming the only person in history to erase $200 billion from their net worth.

Musk, 51, has seen his wealth plummet to $137 billion after Tesla shares tumbled in recent weeks, including an 11% drop on Tuesday, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. His fortune peaked at $340 billion on Nov. 4, 2021, and he remained the world's richest person until he was overtaken this month by Bernard Arnault, the French tycoon behind luxury-goods powerhouse LVMH.

The round-number milestone reflects just how high Musk soared during the run-up in asset prices during the easy-money pandemic era. Tesla exceeded a $1 trillion market capitalization for the first time in October 2021, joining the likes of ubiquitous technology companies Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp., Amazon.com Inc. and Google parent Alphabet Inc., even though its electric vehicles represented only a sliver of the overall auto market.

Now Tesla's dominance in electric cars, the foundation of its lofty valuation, is in jeopardy as competitors catch up. It's offering US consumers a rare $7,500 discount to take delivery of its two highest-volume models before year-end, while also reportedly reducing production at its Shanghai plant.

Meanwhile, with pressure on Tesla intensifying, Musk has been preoccupied with Twitter, which he acquired for $44 billion in late October. He's applied a move-fast-and-break-things approach such as firing staff then asking them to come back and applying content policies haphazardly to justify banning the accounts of some prominent journalists who cover him.

The decline in Tesla shares has been so steep - the shares fell 65% in 2022 -and Musk has sold so much this year to help cover his Twitter purchase, that they're no longer his biggest asset, according to Bloomberg's wealth index. Musk's stake in his closely held Space Exploration Technologies Corp., at $44.8 billion, exceeds his approximately $44 billion position in Tesla stock (he still has options worth an estimated $27.8 billion). Musk now owns 42.2% of SpaceX, according to a recent filing.

Musk, for his part, has dismissed concerns about Tesla and has repeatedly taken to Twitter to criticize the Federal Reserve for raising interest rates at the fastest pace in a generation.

"Tesla is executing better than ever!" Musk tweeted on Dec. 16. "We don't control the Federal Reserve. That is the real problem here."

The billionaire, who has previously borrowed extensively against his stake in Tesla, has though also recently warned against the dangers of borrowed money in panicky markets.

"I would really advise people not to have margin debt in a volatile stock market and you know, from a cash standpoint, keep powder dry," Musk said in the All-In podcast released this month. "You can get some pretty extreme things happening in a down market."

NDTV
 
Twitter sued over $136,260 in unpaid rent after Elon Musk takeover
Landlord alleges the social media company owes back rent for its California Street branch in San Francisco

Elon Musk is trying to slash expenses at Twitter as close to zero as possible while his personal wealth shrinks – and this apparently has included falling behind on rent payments at the company’s offices.

Twitter owes $136,260 (£113,601) in overdue rent on its offices on the 30th floor of a building in downtown San Francisco, according to a lawsuit filed by the building’s landlord last week.

The landlord at 650 California Street, which is not Twitter’s main San Francisco headquarters, served a notice to the social media company on 16 December informing it that it would be in default if it didn’t pay within five days. The five days elapsed without payment, according to the lawsuit.

The landlord, Columbia REIT 650 California LLC, is seeking damages totaling the back rent, as well as attorney’s fees and other expenses. Twitter signed a seven-year lease for the offices in 2017. The monthly rent was $107,526.50 (£89,646) in the first full year and increased gradually to $128,397 (£107,045) in the seventh year.

Twitter did not respond to a message for comment. The company no longer has a media relations department.

...
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jan/03/twitter-sued-overdue-rent-san-francisco-branch
 
Elon Musk has earned a place in the Guinness World Records for the largest ever loss of personal wealth after Tesla stock plummeted.

The Twitter and Tesla chief executive - who was overtaken as the world's richest man in December - has lost about £153bn ($182bn) since November 2021, according to estimates by Forbes.

SKY
 
A trial into a tweet by Elon Musk alleging that he would take Tesla private in a $72bn (£58.7bn) buyout is set to begin on Tuesday.

Mr Musk is being sued by Tesla shareholders, who say that he manipulated the share price of the company.

In 2018, he tweeted that he had "funding secured" to take the carmaker private.

However the funding was not secured - and Tesla was not taken private.

Shareholders argued that they lost billions of dollars due to the tweet after the share price plummeted.

The Tesla CEO, however, argued that he believed he had secured funding from Saudi Arabia's Investment Fund, and did not commit securities fraud.

If a San Francisco jury rules in the shareholder's favour, Mr Musk may be ordered to pay billions of dollars in damages.

He has already paid $20m to the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) for the 7 August 2018 tweet, while Tesla had to pay another $20m.

The SEC also removed Mr Musk as chairman of Tesla as a result of the tweet.

BBC
 
Twitter's bird statue sells for $100,000 at auction


An auction for hundreds of items at Twitter's San Francisco HQ has just ended.

A statue of the platform's famous bird logo has claimed the most expensive item sold, coming in at $100,000 (£81,000).

Viewers online noted that some of the used items were no bargain, as they were selling for more than retail.

The sale comes as owner Elon Musk cuts costs at Twitter following his $44bn purchase of the company last year.

Since taking over in late October, Mr Musk has laid off around half of the company's 7,500 staff.

He has also ended many of Twitter's perks, such as free meals.

Heritage Global Partners, the auction's administrator, did not publish the auction's final results, but the BBC has collected several prices just before closing.

A 190cm (6ft) planter in the shape of an @ symbol finished near $15,000 (£12,160).

...
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-64312309
 
Twitter accused of being behind on rent once again - and this time, it involves King Charles
This isn't the first time that Twitter has gotten into trouble for being behind on rent. A lawsuit was filed by the landlord of its San Francisco headquarters earlier this month, too.

Twitter is being sued by the Crown Estate amid allegations of unpaid rent at its London headquarters.

The Crown Estate, which manages a property portfolio belonging to the monarchy, filed a case at the High Court last week.

Twitter's office is based near Piccadilly Circus in central London - but reports have suggested that the tech giant has removed signs and logos from the space in recent months.

According to The Daily Telegraph, Twitter had signed a £2.6m-a-year lease for the third floor, but the dispute relates to rent arrears on the first floor in the same building.

Elon Musk took over the company in a $44bn (£35bn) deal last year, and subsequently began cutting thousands of jobs.

This isn't the first time that Twitter has faced allegations of unpaid rent at its offices.

Earlier this month, the landlord of its San Francisco headquarters claimed that the company owed $136,260 (£110,073).

Twitter is yet to comment on the latest allegations made by the Crown Estate.

SKY
 
Tesla co-founder Elon Musk has been cleared of wrongdoing for a tweet in which he said he had "funding secured" to take the electric carmaker back into private ownership.

Shareholders argued he misled them with his posts in August 2018, and they had lost billions of dollars because of them.

The proposed $72bn (£60bn) buyout never materialised.

If found liable, Musk could have been ordered to pay out billions in damages.

It took the nine jurors less than two hours to reach their verdict on the class-action lawsuit on Friday afternoon.

Mr Musk - who had wanted the trial moved to Texas, where Tesla is based, arguing he could not get a fair trial in San Francisco - welcomed the outcome.

Taking to Twitter, the social media platform he bought for $44bn last October, he posted: "Thank goodness, the wisdom of the people has prevailed!

"I am deeply appreciative of the jury's unanimous finding of innocence in the Tesla 420 take-private case."

BBC
 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The new CEO of Twitter is amazing <a href="https://t.co/yBqWFUDIQH">pic.twitter.com/yBqWFUDIQH</a></p>— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1625695877326340102?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 15, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
 
Elon Musk apologises after mocking disabled ex-Twitter employee
Twitter CEO had questioned former staffer about his work, disability and need for accommodations.

If you’re not told you are fired, are you really fired? At Twitter, probably. And then, sometimes, you get your job back — if you want it.

Haraldur Thorleifsson, who until recently was employed at Twitter, logged in to his computer last Sunday to do some work — only to find himself locked out, along with 200 others.

He might have figured, as others before him have in the chaotic months of layoffs and firings since Elon Musk took over the company, that he was out of a job.

Instead, after nine days of no answer from Twitter as to whether or not he was still employed, Thorleifsson decided to tweet at Musk to see if he could catch the billionaire’s attention and get an answer to his Schrödinger’s job situation.

“Maybe if enough people retweet you’ll answer me here?” he wrote on Monday.

Eventually, he got his answer after a surreal Twitter exchange with Musk, who proceeded to question him about his work, disability and need for accommodations (Thorleifsson, who goes by “Halli,” has muscular dystrophy and uses a wheelchair) and tweet that Thorleifsson has a “prominent, active Twitter account and is wealthy” and the “reason he confronted me in public was to get a big payout”. While the exchange was going on, Thorleifsson said he received an email that he was no longer employed.

Late Tuesday afternoon, however, Musk had a change of heart.

“I would like to apologize to Halli for my misunderstanding of his situation. It was based on things I was told that were untrue or, in some cases, true, but not meaningful,” he tweeted. “He is considering remaining at Twitter.”

Thorleifsson did not immediately respond to a message for comment following Musk’s tweet. In an earlier email, he called the experience “surreal”.

“You had every right to lay me off. But it would have been nice to let me know!” he tweeted to Musk.

...
https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2...es-after-mocking-disabled-ex-twitter-employee
 
Elon Musk memo suggests Twitter worth less than half of what he paid for it
Calculation based on leaked offer to staff that implies firm valued at $20bn compared with $44bn he bought it for

Twitter is worth less than half of what Elon Musk paid for it six months ago having lost more than $20bn (£16.4bn) in value, according to calculations based on a leaked memo from the billionaire.

Musk suggested in memo to the social media company’s staff that it is now valued at less than $20bn. This compares with the $44bn he paid for it in October 2022.

The company’s steep devaluation follows Musk’s turbulent takeover. Several large advertisers have left the platform and a major source of funds for Musk’s purchase of the company, the investment firm Fidelity, has written down the value of its stake by 56%.

The measure of Twitter’s worth was based on Musk’s offer of stock grants, according to Platformer and the Information, which first reported on the memo.

Generally used as way to incentivise employees, stock grants are an opportunity to buy shares that cannot be sold until a set point in time, as opposed to stock options, which - depending on the conditions applied - can be more flexible. The aim is to encourage staff to reach a set valuation by a point in time so that they can sell their shares for cash.

The stock grants could be “sold every six months, based on a third party valuation”, another separate internal email to Twitter staff said.

Musk’s email also said that, before a spate of high-profile, acrimonious layoffs the company had been about four months from running out of money.

...
https://www.theguardian.com/technol...twitter-value-leaked-memo-less-than-half-paid
 
Elon Musk: Twitter boss announces blue tick shake-up

Twitter boss Elon Musk has announced a shake-up of the social media platform's paid Twitter Blue feature.

From 15 April only verified subscribers will have posts recommended to other users and be allowed to vote in polls.

Under the policy, posts from non-paying accounts will not be included in the "For you" stream of recommended tweets.

Last week, the firm said it would remove the verified status of some "legacy" accounts, which date from before Mr Musk bought the firm.

Users currently pay $7 (£5.70) a month for blue-tick verification, which also allows access to additional features.

Mr Musk said the changes were "the only realistic way to address advanced AI bot swarms taking over. It is otherwise a hopeless losing battle."

"Voting in polls will require verification for same reason," he added.

In an earlier post, Mr Musk said paid verification significantly increases the cost of using bots and makes it easier to identify them.

However, the move has been criticised by some social media users.

A former worker on Twitter's verification team who asked to remain anonymous told the BBC: "Our number one goal for my team was to protect users from real world harm and this screams the complete opposite to me."

"Verified users will use their power and their presence on the platform to influence anything from misinformation to actual harm for users all around the world. It's a silent threat that no one is seeing," they added.

...
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-65095684
 
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