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Elon Musk & Twitter thread (updates) -- free speech and information control unrest

#1
C C Offline
News, public reactions, opinions and comments as continued from the following topic:

What's going on with Elon Musk & Twitter?

https://www.scivillage.com/thread-12048-page-2.html






Elon Musk: ‘The far left hates everyone, themselves included’
https://dailycaller.com/2022/04/29/elon-...ded-tweet/

EXCERPTS: Elon Musk continues to make it clear he’s not a fan of the far left. [...] he doubled down early Friday morning when he tweeted, “The far left hates everyone, themselves included.”

He also made it clear he doesn’t like the far right and added, “But I’m no fan of the far right either. Let’s have less hate and more love.”

These tweets from Musk are about as rational and fair as you could ever hope to be. The extremes on both sides are incredibly unbearable to deal with.

The only difference is the far right has no power in America, which isn’t a bad thing, but the far left is engrained in some of our largest institutions... (MORE - missing details)


A Reminder of Just Some of the Terrible Things Elon Musk Has Said and Done (May include items of "terribleness" perhaps evaluated as such from the context of the Neo-Prudish Movement and Left Establishment standards, moralizing)
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/04/...d-and-done

INTRO: Like the employees of Twitter, who reportedly reacted to yesterday’s news with “shock and dismay,” a lot of people are not enthused about the idea of Elon Musk buying the social media network. But now, he is, and if you’re not familiar with the guy, or just think of him as the dude who sells electric cars and is really into space, you might be wondering why so many people are up in arms. And the answer is: He’s a huge jerk! Who regularly uses his massive platform and other sources of power to do bad things!

Online, those things have included:

Claiming in March 2020 that people worried about the coronavirus were “dumb”
   
Predicting on March 19, 2020, that the U.S. was going to have “close to zero new cases” by the end of April

Questioning the safety of the COVID-19 vaccines, and baselessly asserting that there were “quite a few negative reactions” to getting a second shot

Likening Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau to Hitler

Saying the U.S. government shouldn‘t provide subsidies to companies after receiving billions in subsidies from the U.S government

Using Twitter to engage in securities fraud

Tweeting, “Pronouns suck”

Tweeting misogynistic things at Senator Elizabeth Warren because she said he should pay more in taxes

Writing to Bernie Sanders, who also thinks the richest man in the world should pay more in taxes, “I keep forgetting that you’re still alive”

Tweeting dumb, sexist jokes

Tweeting a photo of Bill Gates and writing, “in case u need to lose a boner fast”

Tweeting in 2018 that Tesla factory workers could lose their stock options if they unionized

Baselessly accusing a British cave diver instrumental in rescuing a trapped football team of being a “pedo guy” because he, like others, said Musk’s idea to send in a submarine wouldn’t work

While off-line, and more consequentially:

Reopening a Tesla factory in violation of public health orders, where 450 cases were subsequently recorded

Running a company (Tesla) that was ordered to pay nearly $137 million to a former Black employee who said the company ignored repeated complaints that he was called the N-word and that his colleagues “had drawn swastikas and scratched a racial epithet in a bathroom stall and left drawings of derogatory caricatures of Black children around the factory.” (In a message to Tesla employees, a human resources executive downplayed the man’s allegations, noting he was a contractor, not a full-time staffer, and that other witnesses had said that while they heard racial slurs, they were used in a “friendly” manner. The H.R. executive added that the company was “not perfect” at the time of the incidents, and “is still not perfect,” but has “come a long way.”)

Running a company (Tesla), where a female worker said sexual harassment was “rampant,” alleging “nightmarish conditions” and a factory that “more resembles a crude, archaic construction site or frat house than a cutting-edge company in the heart of the progressive San Francisco Bay area.” (The company did not respond to multiple requests for comment from The Washington Post, which noted Tesla “does not typically respond to press inquiries.”)

Running a company (Tesla) that employees have called a “modern-day sweatshop” (In response, Telsa said it abided by California laws.)

Attempting to “destroy a Tesla whistleblower”

Reportedly exploding at “executives and lower-ranking workers” alike, and allegedly firing people who disagreed with him (Musk has denied allegations that he goes on firing sprees)

Announcing Tesla’s headquarters would move to Texas one month after the state effectively banned all abortions

Paying a private investigator $50,000 to dig up dirt on the cave diver he called “pedo guy” (MORE - details)
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#2
Yazata Offline
The Biden regime is responding to Elon's purchase of Twitter by ordering the Department of Homeland Security (a potentially dangerous idea when it was created by George W. Bush) to create what amounts to a United States (and world) Ministry of Truth.

And this... person... in the Twitter video below has been appointed (not elected) to be our new Minister of Truth, the world's supposed final authority on what is true and what is false.

I'd be willing to bet that she's quite unable to provide a persuasive account of what truth is or how one recognizes the truth on the occasions when one encounters it. Particularly when what is under discussion are matters of opinion and value judgments.

In a perverse way her Ministry of Truth might actually be useful. Whatever she condemns as 'false' will probably be worthy of further consideration, if only because it threatens the deep state powers of those she serves. And whatever she pronounces as 'true' should receive considerable skepticism, until it's clear what factual justification the idea has and whose interests it serves.

So I do expect to pay some attention to her office, but in precisely the opposite way that it's intended.

The United States becomes more similar to communist China every day... probably by design, since those in power admire and seek to emulate China's one-party control of its own people.

https://twitter.com/brokebackUSA/status/...2819366919
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#3
C C Offline
Florida pension fund sues Elon Musk over Twitter deal
https://www.engadget.com/musk-twitter-la...29248.html

EXCERPT: A Florida pension fund is suing Musk and Twitter, arguing that the deal can't legally close until 2025 due to the billionaire's stake in the platform. The proposed class-action lawsuit - filed today by the Orlando Police Pension Fund in the Delaware Chancery court [...] raises "some very novel issues" under Delaware corporate law.

Under a law known as Section 203, shareholders who own more than 15 percent of the company can’t enter a merger without two-thirds of the remaining shares granting approval. Without this approval, the merger can’t be finalized for another three years.

The fund’s lawyers state that Musk initially owned roughly 10 percent of Twitter’s shares, which would seemingly not make Section 203 applicable. But, the fund argues, Musk formed a pact with Morgan Stanley (which owns 8.8 percent of shares) and former CEO Jack Dorsey (who has 2.4 percent) to advance the deal. The combined stake of these parties allegedly makes Musk and his allies in the takeover deal an "interested shareholder" under Section 203...

[...] “Section 203 is not often litigated, and so the issue of whether Musk's relationship with these parties actually counts for statutory purposes is an unsettled question and it will be interesting to watch how it unfolds,” wrote Lipton... (MORE - missing details)


Elon Musk Disputes Devin Nunes' Claim That Trump Directed Him To Buy Twitter
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/elon-musk...ad0d7c3975

INTRO: Elon Musk sharply contradicted a claim by Truth Social head and former Republican lawmaker Devin Nunes that Donald Trump had directed Musk to buy Twitter. The Tesla CEO and multibillionaire flatly called the claim “false” in a tweet.

“I’ve had no communication, directly or indirectly, with Trump, who has publicly stated that he will be exclusively on Truth Social,” Musk wrote, referring to the former president’s own social media platform and Twitter competitor.

Nunes claimed on Fox Business on Wednesday that Musk was following Trump’s directive when he purchased Twitter... (MORE - details)
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#4
Yazata Offline
Reports today say that the Biden adminstration's plans to create what critics labeled an Orwellian 'Ministry of Truth' have been put on "pause". (But not terminated apparently.)

And the designated Minister of Truth, the Mary Poppins wannabe in the video in the tweet below, has submitted her resignation.

https://twitter.com/brokebackUSA/status/...2819366919

It's believed that the Biden administration had started to see the widely unpopular and distrusted new office as a public relations disaster. It only looked worse when Congressional hearings (scheduled by the Democrats months ago) announced that they had placed this woman on their witness list to testify before their committee. The Republicans were looking forward to grilling her about her previously expressed partisan opinions and activism, Democrats feared major embarrassment and the only way to get out of it was to pull the plug.

Biden's new press secretary is now trying to portray her as a victim.

What they failed to realize (or more likely refused to acknowledge) is that "fact-checking" only succeeds if the fact-checkers are perceived to be above reproach, non-partisan and not active participants on one side in the disputes whose truth they are purporting to adjudicate.

Fact-checking turns into propaganda when that line is crossed.

(The old communist party newspaper "Pravda" means "Truth" in Russian...")
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#5
Kornee Offline
(Apr 30, 2022 06:33 AM)Yazata Wrote: The Biden regime is responding to Elon's purchase of Twitter by ordering the Department of Homeland Security (a potentially dangerous idea when it was created by George W. Bush) to create what amounts to a United States (and world) Ministry of Truth.

And this... person... in the Twitter video below has been appointed (not elected) to be our new Minister of Truth, the world's supposed final authority on what is true and what is false.

I'd be willing to bet that she's quite unable to provide a persuasive account of what truth is or how one recognizes the truth on the occasions when one encounters it. Particularly when what is under discussion are matters of opinion and value judgments.

In a perverse way her Ministry of Truth might actually be useful. Whatever she condemns as 'false' will probably be worthy of further consideration, if only because it threatens the deep state powers of those she serves. And whatever she pronounces as 'true' should receive considerable skepticism, until it's clear what factual justification the idea has and whose interests it serves.

So I do expect to pay some attention to her office, but in precisely the opposite way that it's intended.

The United States becomes more similar to communist China every day...  probably by design, since those in power admire and seek to emulate China's one-party control of its own people.

https://twitter.com/brokebackUSA/status/...2819366919
Yep agree wholeheartedly. Ditto for the next few post on. A sad trending situation on the broader front but a few rays of hope of late.
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#7
RainbowUnicorn Offline
(May 7, 2022 03:53 PM)C C Wrote: Florida pension fund sues Elon Musk over Twitter deal

pension fund invests in twitter ?

that would be classed as medium risk and should not be a large amount of their portfolio

(Jul 9, 2022 12:15 AM)Yazata Wrote: Elon appears to have halted his purchase of Twitter.

& the share price has dropped as i expected
but i thought it would lose closer to 10%
its only lost 5%
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#9
Magical Realist Offline
Twitter sues Elon Musk..

https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/12/tech/twit...index.html

"Twitter has sued billionaire Elon Musk in an effort to force him to follow through with his deal to buy the social media company.

The lawsuit, filed in the Delaware Court of Chancery on Tuesday, comes after Musk said in a letter to Twitter's top lawyer late Friday that he wants to terminate the blockbuster $44 billion acquisition agreement.

Musk's lawyer alleged in Friday's letter that Twitter (TWTR) is "in material breach of multiple provisions" of the deal, claiming the company has withheld data Musk requested in order to evaluate the number of bots and spam accounts on the platform. Twitter's legal team hit back in a letter on Monday, calling Musk's attempted termination "invalid and wrongful," claiming that Musk himself had violated the agreement and demanding that he follow through with the deal.
In the complaint filed Tuesday, Twitter's lawyers say they are seeking to prevent Musk from further breaches of the agreement, and to "compel consummation of the merger upon satisfaction of the few outstanding conditions."
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#10
Yazata Offline
The problem is that apart from the obvious free-speech issues, just in terms of its business Twitter is a dumpster-fire.

Twitter makes most of its revenues from advertisers, and those advertisers pay rates based on reaching a certain number of human Twitter users. So if Twitter has been significantly under-counting spam accounts, then advertisers can demand lower advertising rates in the future and can sue Twitter for having paid bot-inflated rates in the past. It might conceivably rise to the level of fraud. And if Elon is the new owner, he would effectively be the one being sued when Twitter is sued. If Twitter goes out of business or declines dramatically in value, it's Elon that eats the loss.

I think that Elon's argument is that he relied on Twitter's public financial filings in good faith. If those public filings can be shown to have been materially untrue, then forcing him to consummate the deal at the original terms would effectively turn him into another fraud victim. And now that Twitter has sued Elon, Elon can demand in discovery to see precisely how Twitter calculated that less than 5% of their users were bots, a number that most of Silicon Valley thinks is too low.

If Twitter loses, it's conceivable that its managers could be charged with various securities violations, from knowingly filing false numbers up to and including securities fraud, or at the very least sued by both Twitter's advertisers and its stockholders for misrepresenting the bot numbers. And if Twitter loses but Elon succeeds in getting damaging information about bot numbers made public, then Twitter's published growth numbers will have been proven false (inflated by bots) and the stock price would crash.

It seems to me that the worst that Elon losing Twitter's suit would mean to him is that he would have to buy Twitter at the terms he originally offered them. The problem for Elon in losing is that there are limits to how much of his Tesla stock he can use as collateral for loans. He based his $44 billion offer largely on borrowing against Tesla stock. But the Tesla stock has gone down along with the rest of the economy due to the recession and stagflation. So Elon can't borrow as much money against his ownership share of Tesla. He would be maybe $10 billion short. Which would force him to sell a nice chunk of Tesla stock to cover. He doesn't want to do that since it would drive Tesla's price down and dilute his own ownership stake.
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