Elon Musk had Twitter engineers working late on Sunday to alter his social network’s algorithm and prioritize his tweets, resulting in a glut of them in users’ feeds on Monday, according to a report by Platformer. The billionaire Twitter owner was said to be unhappy with the number of views of his Super Bowl tweet. As a result of his request, Twitter excluded Musk’s tweets from filters designed to improve the quality of users’ timelines, Platformer said, and artificially boosted them by a factor of 1,000. Users across Twitter complained about seeing an abundance of the owner’s missives on the day following the Super Bowl.
Please stay tuned while we make adjustments to the uh .… “algorithm”
Musk’s message of support for the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday got significantly lower engagement than US President Joe Biden expressing a similar sentiment. The company’s chief has been increasingly focused on — and frustrated by — his personal engagement numbers, which have been dropping in recent weeks, the report said. Musk has nearly 129 million followers, whereas Biden’s account has 37 million.
Before taking the company private in a $44 billion (roughly Rs. 3,64,400 crore) deal in October, the Tesla chief executive officer spoke of his desire to make it an even playing field and eliminate bias in the system.
Twitter didn’t immediately respond to an emailed request for comment. Musk tweeted liberally about Twitter and its functionality after the publication of the report, but didn’t address its content.
Earlier, he tweeted a meme suggesting his tweets were going to be force-fed to Twitter users. He also said the company was making adjustments to the algorithm.
The OnePlus 11 5G was launched at the company’s Cloud 11 launch event which also saw the debut of several other devices. We discuss this new handset and all of OnePlus’ new hardware on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.
Affiliate links may be automatically generated – see our ethics statement for details.
After seeing promising results in Eastern Europe, Google will initiate a new campaign in Germany that aims to make people more resilient to the corrosive effects of online misinformation.
The tech giant plans to release a series of short videos highlighting the techniques common to many misleading claims. The videos will appear as advertisements on platforms like Facebook, YouTube or TikTok in Germany. A similar campaign in India is also in the works.
It’s an approach called prebunking, which involves teaching people how to spot false claims before they encounter them. The strategy is gaining support among researchers and tech companies.
“There’s a real appetite for solutions,” said Beth Goldberg, head of research and development at Jigsaw, an incubator division of Google that studies emerging social challenges. “Using ads as a vehicle to counter a disinformation technique is pretty novel. And we’re excited about the results.”
While belief in falsehoods and conspiracy theories isn’t new, the speed and reach of the internet has given them a heightened power. When catalyzed by algorithms, misleading claims can discourage people from getting vaccines, spread authoritarian propaganda, foment distrust in democratic institutions and spur violence.
It’s a challenge with few easy solutions. Journalistic fact checks are effective, but they’re labor intensive, aren’t read by everyone, and won’t convince those already distrustful of traditional journalism. Content moderation by tech companies is another response, but it only drives misinformation elsewhere, while prompting cries of censorship and bias.
Prebunking videos, by contrast, are relatively cheap and easy to produce and can be seen by millions when placed on popular platforms. They also avoid the political challenge altogether by focusing not on the topics of false claims, which are often cultural lightning rods, but on the techniques that make viral misinformation so infectious.
Those techniques include fear-mongering, scapegoating, false comparisons, exaggeration and missing context. Whether the subject is COVID-19, mass shootings, immigration, climate change or elections, misleading claims often rely on one or more of these tricks to exploit emotions and short-circuit critical thinking.
Last fall, Google launched the largest test of the theory so far with a prebunking video campaign in Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The videos dissected different techniques seen in false claims about Ukrainian refugees. Many of those claims relied on alarming and unfounded stories about refugees committing crimes or taking jobs away from residents.
The videos were seen 38 million times on Facebook, TikTok, YouTube and Twitter — a number that equates to a majority of the population in the three nations. Researchers found that compared to people who hadn’t seen the videos, those who did watch were more likely to be able to identify misinformation techniques, and less likely to spread false claims to others.
The pilot project was the largest test of prebunking so far and adds to a growing consensus in support of the theory.
“This is a good news story in what has essentially been a bad news business when it comes to misinformation,” said Alex Mahadevan, director of MediaWise, a media literacy initiative of the Poynter Institute that has incorporated prebunking into its own programs in countries including Brazil, Spain, France and the US.
Mahadevan called the strategy a “pretty efficient way to address misinformation at scale, because you can reach a lot of people while at the same time address a wide range of misinformation.”
Google’s new campaign in Germany will include a focus on photos and videos, and the ease with which they can be presented of evidence of something false. One example: Last week, following the earthquake in Turkey, some social media users shared video of the massive explosion in Beirut in 2020, claiming it was actually footage of a nuclear explosion triggered by the earthquake. It was not the first time the 2020 explosion had been the subject of misinformation.
Google will announce its new German campaign Monday ahead of next week’s Munich Security Conference. The timing of the announcement, coming before that annual gathering of international security officials, reflects heightened concerns about the impact of misinformation among both tech companies and government officials.
Tech companies like prebunking because it avoids touchy topics that are easily politicized, said Sander van der Linden, a University of Cambridge professor considered a leading expert on the theory. Van der Linden worked with Google on its campaign and is now advising Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, as well.
Meta has incorporated prebunking into many different media literacy and anti-misinformation campaigns in recent years, the company told The Associated Press in an emailed statement.
They include a 2021 program in the US that offered media literacy training about COVID-19 to Black, Latino and Asian American communities. Participants who took the training were later tested and found to be far more resistant to misleading COVID-19 claims.
Prebunking comes with its own challenges. The effects of the videos eventually wears off, requiring the use of periodic “booster” videos. Also, the videos must be crafted well enough to hold the viewer’s attention, and tailored for different languages, cultures and demographics. And like a vaccine, it’s not 100 percent effective for everyone.
Google found that its campaign in Eastern Europe varied from country to country. While the effect of the videos was highest in Poland, in Slovakia they had “little to no discernible effect,” researchers found. One possible explanation: The videos were dubbed into the Slovak language, and not created specifically for the local audience.
But together with traditional journalism, content moderation and other methods of combating misinformation, prebunking could help communities reach a kind of herd immunity when it comes to misinformation, limiting its spread and impact.
“You can think of misinformation as a virus. It spreads. It lingers. It can make people act in certain ways,” Van der Linden told the AP. “Some people develop symptoms, some do not. So: if it spreads and acts like a virus, then maybe we can figure out how to inoculate people.”
Affiliate links may be automatically generated – see our ethics statement for details.
WASHINGTON — The House oversight committee’s Republican majority plans to press hard for evidence of “collusion” between the FBI and Twitter to censor The Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story when three former executives of the social media company appear at the Capitol Wednesday morning.
Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) laid out the goal in the prepared version of his opening remarks, excerpts of which were released ahead of the 10 a.m. hearing.
“Twitter, under the leadership of our witnesses today, was a private company the federal government used to accomplish what it constitutionally cannot: limit the free exercise of speech,” Comer will say.
“We owe it to the American people to provide answers about this collusion to censor information about Joe Biden’s involvement in his family’s business schemes.”
Comer is holding the hearing as one of his first acts since taking power last month as other committees prepare for related investigations of possible FBI and intelligence-community misconduct.
Excerpts of Rep. James Comer opening remarks were released ahead of the hearing.AP/Jose Luis Magana
Although little is yet known about the FBI’s direct role in the laptop story’s censorship by platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, Comer will lay out what information has already been made available, some of which was released by new Twitter owner Elon Musk.
“In the months leading up to the laptop story, the FBI advised senior Twitter executives to question the validity of any Hunter Biden story. We also know that one of the witnesses before us today participated in an Aspen Institute exercise in September 2020 on a potential ‘hack and dump’ operation relating to Hunter Biden,” Comer’s prepared remarks say.
“Other Big Tech companies and reporters attended as well. This exercise prepared them for their future collusion to suppress and delegitimize information contained in Hunter Biden’s laptop about the Biden family’s business schemes.”
There are allegations that the FBI became involved with Hunter Biden’s laptop scandal.
Comer will add, “On October 14, 2020, the New York Post published its first story based on information contained in Hunter Biden’s laptop … Immediately following the story’s publication, America witnessed a coordinated campaign by social media companies, mainstream news, and the intelligence community to suppress and delegitimize the existence of Hunter Biden’s laptop and its contents.”
Democrats are expected to play defense at the hearing.
White House spokesman Ian Sams tweeted last week that the hearing was “a political stunt.” Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) said in a recent prebuttal, “If you’re so interested in what was on Hunter Biden’s laptop, you should do that in your private time, not on the taxpayer’s dime.”
But Republicans are expected to pressure the former executives on breadcrumbs left by Musk’s so-called “Twitter Files” disclosures after he took over the platform in October.
The FBI paid Twitter $3.5 million from October 2019 to February 2021 to process its moderation requests, according to a document released by Musk.
San Francisco-based FBI agent Elvis Chan used a special transmission platform called Teleporter to send Roth and at least one other person 10 documents on the night of Oct. 13, 2020, just hours before The Post’s initial laptop stories were published at 5 a.m. on Oct. 14, according to Musk-released evidence.
In July 2020 — three months before The Post broke the laptop story — Chan emailed Roth suggesting that beginning 30 days before Election Day, Twitter executives would be granted temporary security clearances to discuss threats with FBI officials, according to Musk’s disclosures.
The laptop revelations attracted questions about possible corruption and conflicts of interest in foreign affairs.
The Post’s first laptop article revealed that Vadym Pozharskyi, an executive at the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, emailed Hunter in 2015 to thank him for the “opportunity to meet your father” — contradicting Biden’s September 2019 claim that he’d “never spoken” with his son about “his overseas business dealings” and his August 2019 claim that “I have never discussed, with my son or my brother or with anyone else, anything having to do with their businesses.”
Hunter earned up to $1 million per year to serve on the Burisma board from 2014 to 2019, beginning when his father was put in charge of the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy.
The FBI paid Twitter $3.5 million from October 2019 to February 2021 to process its moderation requests, according to documents released by Elon Musk.Bloomberg via Getty Images
A second October 2020 bombshell from The Post described Joe Biden’s alleged role in Hunter Biden and his uncle Jim Biden’s business venture with the company CEFC China Energy, which was reputed to be part of Beijing’s “Belt and Road” foreign influence campaign.
A May 13, 2017, email from the laptop said the “big guy” would get 10% of the deal. Former Hunter Biden business partner Tony Bobulinski alleges that he discussed the CEFC partnership with Joe Biden in May 2017 and both Bobulinski and another former Hunter Biden partner, James Gilliar, identified Joe Biden as the “big guy.”
Hunter and James Biden earned $4.8 million from CEFC China Energy in 2017 and 2018, according to the Washington Post’s later review of Hunter Biden laptop documents and an October 2017 email identifies Joe Biden as a participant in a call about CEFC’s attempt to purchase US natural gas.
When they hear James Comer speak with his lilting south-central Kentucky accent and courteous style, it would be an easy mistake for Democrats and targets of his newly fanged House Oversight committee to underestimate the former Monroe County cattle farmer.
But Comer is a killer — and corruption is his prey.
Everything has changed in Washington since the Republicans won back the House, and Comer, as chairman of the Oversight Committee, is champing at the bit to hold the Biden administration accountable. That includes getting to the bottom of the Biden family corruption as revealed in Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop, and elsewhere, using the awesome power of Congress.
“This is not about Hunter Biden,” Comer said last week in a broad-ranging interview with The Post. “It’s about Joe Biden.” He aims to “prove Joe benefitted financially and prove he made decisions against the best interests of the United States.”
Biden probers get busy
Comer is increasingly confident of his case, as whistleblowers come forward to the committee’s investigators from all aspects of the Biden family enterprises, and financial institutions. He says his investigators are examining the hitherto unexplored activities of Joe Biden’s brothers, Jim and Frank — and have witnesses willing to talk.
His initial focus has been to follow the money trail to see how it connects to the Chinese Communist Party. For that purpose, the committee will subpoena 13 banks, the majority of which have been fully cooperative.
Hunter’s high-priced lawyers have been sending letters to the banks warning them not to hand over information to Congress, which Comer says is “bulls–t. They don’t set the rules, Congress sets the rules.”
Comer told The Post the probe is not about Hunter Biden and he aims to prove President Biden “benefitted financially and prove he made decisions against the best interests of the United States.” Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images
Hunter’s lawyers also have sent warning letters to Hunter’s former business partners, which Comer describes as “intimidating witnesses.”
He also promises that, unlike previously when Republicans controlled the House, he will crack down savagely on anyone who lies to Congress.
This Wednesday, his committee will begin probing Twitter’s censorship of The Post’s original laptop stories in October 2020, which was part of an apparent coverup by the FBI and Big Tech to protect Joe Biden before the election.
Appearing under oath is James Baker, Twitter’s former deputy general counsel who played an instrumental role in censoring The Post’s account, and who previously was the top lawyer at the FBI, where he was a lead protagonist in the Russiagate plot against President Trump. Baker was parachuted into Twitter just five months before the 2020 election and his role appeared to be as gatekeeper to block information that might be detrimental to Biden.
Former Twitter deputy general counsel James Baker will appear under oath before the House Oversight Committee this week.Ron Sachs – CNP
Also appearing Wednesday is Yoel Roth, Twitter’s former head of “safety and integrity” a k a chief censor. Roth previously revealed in a sworn declaration that the FBI warned them before the 2020 election to expect a dump of “hacked” material by “state actors”, likely in October, relating to Hunter Biden. This pre-bunking of The Post’s scoop caused Twitter to censor the story.
The third witness to testify is Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s former chief legal officer, who played a key role in censoring The Post and was fired from her $17 million job shortly after Elon Musk took over last October.
Among the questions Republicans on the committee will want to ask is: Who orchestrated Baker’s hiring by Twitter? Did he communicate with anyone associated with the Biden campaign or at the FBI before the election?
Did he know about Hunter’s laptop before The Post’s story was published?
What was the message the FBI sent to Twitter via their Teleporter channel the night before The Post published?
Baker is a past master of deceit, so getting straight answers will be tricky given the format, but similar questions to Roth and Gadde should bear fruit for the systematic evidence bank Comer is building.
Huddle with Chief Twit
Comer met with Musk for more than an hour in Washington recently and was assured of his full support. The Democrats’ Jan. 6 committee has set precedents that Comer will follow. Filming depositions is a crucial part of the armory, something not done before the Jan. 6 investigation but which proved to be remarkably effective in setting the narrative for the public.
Instead of politicians jostling at hearings to make their mark in limited time with their own questions, seasoned interrogators conducting the depositions will draw out a fuller account from witnesses over several hours.
Comer may remind you a little of Columbo, the mild-mannered TV detective whose deceptive geniality lulled suspects into giving the game away.
He is not scruffy like Lieutenant Columbo, but he has the same ruthless focus, disguised by a rural Kentucky congeniality.
While the media tries to paint Comer and his fellow Republicans as clowns, the traps are set and the truth undoubtedly will follow.
The tell-all Pentagon wants shelved
Kash Patel has written a terrific book, “Government Gangsters,” giving an insider’s account of the deep state sabotage of Donald Trump’s presidency, from his vantage point as an adviser to the president and Russiagate investigator for the House Intelligence Committee.
But a book as incendiary as this is not going to have an easy time getting into the hands of the public. And so it is that Patel’s completed manuscript has been languishing at the Department of Defense for more than three months, ostensibly undergoing prepublication “review.”
Patel says his book does not contain classified information — but it sure does send a rocket up the Department of Defense.
Former Trump administration official Kash Patel has a new book that takes aim at the Department of Defense.AP
He takes direct aim at what he calls the Defense Industrial Complex and the “incestuous relationship between senior military leadership within the DoD and the key officers in charge of multibillion-dollar procurement programs on the one hand and the behemoth defense contractors on the other . . .
Get Miranda’s latest take
Sign up for Devine Online, the newsletter from Miranda Devine
“We pay billions for products we don’t need for wars we don’t need to be in. Then, when the generals and officers who pushed for and elongated those wars get out of the military, they are rewarded with a big fat paycheck by the very companies making all those high-priced goods for the DoD.”
Patel sees the Afghanistan withdrawal debacle as the inevitable result of a corrupt military leadership, and he blames Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for the “unprecedented politicization of the military”.
Surely the DoD is not so frightened of a little robust criticism that they are burying Patel’s book.
Prince is just dirty Harry in sexposé
So much for the older woman who rode Prince Harry like a stallion while taking his virginity, as he recounted in lascivious detail in his book, “Spare.” Turns out she’s only two years older than Harry — and one year younger than his wife, Meghan Markle.
Sasha Walpole, now a 40-year-old mother of two who drives a digger for a living, has been outed as the mystery Brit the world’s press has been searching for since Harry blabbed about their teenage tryst.
She kept her mouth shut for 21 years when she could have made thousands of dollars selling her story to the media. In the end it was Harry who cashed in on her privacy, scoring a reported $20 million to spice up his crybaby memoir.
“I don’t understand why he went into such detail,” Walpole told a reporter who tracked her down last week. “He could have said he lost his virginity and left it at that . . . I would never have spoken out if Harry hadn’t. I’m not that sort of person . . . He has brought it to my door by writing about it.”
It’s Harry’s lowest act so far. No one should ever take him seriously when he whines about his own privacy.
Tech companies are always in the news, usually touting the next big thing. However, the tech news cycle recently hasn’t been dominated by the latest gadget or innovation. Instead, layoffs are in the headlines.
In the last year, more than 70,000 people globally have been laid off by Big Tech companies – and that doesn’t count the downstream effect of contractors (and other organisations) losing business as budgets tighten.
What exactly led to this massive shakeout? And what does it mean for the industry, and you? What’s the damage? Since the end of the pandemic hiring spree, large numbers of employees have been fired from major tech companies, including Alphabet (12,000 employees), Amazon (18,000), Meta (11,000), Twitter (4,000), Microsoft (10,000), and Salesforce (8,000).
Other household names share the spotlight, including Tesla, Netflix, Robin Hood, Snap, Coinbase and Spotify – but their layoffs are significantly less than those mentioned above.
Importantly, these figures don’t include the downstream layoffs, such as advertising agencies laying off staff as ad spend reduces, or manufacturers downsizing as tech product orders shrink – or even potential layoffs yet to come.
And let’s not forget the folks leaving voluntarily because they don’t want to come into the office, hate their managers, or aren’t keen on Elon Musk‘s “hardcore work” philosophy.
The knock-on effects of all of the above will be felt in the consulting, marketing, advertising and manufacturing spaces as companies reduce spending, and redirect it towards innovating in AI.
So what’s driving the layoffs? The canary in the coal mine was reduced advertising spend and revenue. Many tech companies are funded through advertising. So, for as long as that income stream was healthy (which was especially the case in the years leading up to COVID), so was expenditure on staffing. As advertising revenue decreased last year – in part due to fears over a global recession triggered by the pandemic – it was inevitable layoffs would follow.
Apple is one exception. It strongly resisted increasing its head count in recent years and as a result doesn’t have to shrink staff numbers (although it hasn’t been immune to staff losses due to work-from-home policy changes).
What does it mean for consumers? Although the headlines can be startling, the layoffs won’t actually mean a whole lot for consumers. Overall, work on tech products and services is still expanding.
Even Twitter, which many predicted to be dead by now, is looking to diversify its streams of revenue.
That said, some pet projects such as Mark Zuckerberg‘s Metaverse likely won’t be further developed the way their leaders had initially hoped. The evidence for this is in the layoffs, which are concentrated (at least at Amazon, Microsoft and Meta) in these big innovation gambles taken by senior leaders.
Over the past few years, low interest rates coupled with high COVID-related consumption gave leaders the confidence to invest in innovative products. Other than in AI, that investment is now slowing, or is dead.
And what about the people who lost their jobs? Layoffs can be devastating for the individuals affected. But who is affected in this case? For the most part, the people losing their jobs are educated and highly employable professionals. They are being given severance packages and support which often exceed the minimum legal requirements. Amazon, for example, specifically indicated its losses would be in tech staff and those who support them; not in warehouses.
Having a Big Tech employer on their CV will be a real advantage as these individuals move into a more competitive employment market, even if it doesn’t look like it will be quite as heated as many had feared.
What does this mean for the industry? With experienced tech professionals looking for work once again, salaries are likely to deflate and higher levels of experience and education will be required to secure employment. These corrections in the industry are potentially a sign it’s falling in line with other, more established parts of the market.
The recent layoffs are eye-catching, but they won’t affect the overall economy much. In fact, even if Big Tech laid off 100,000 workers, it would still be a fraction of the tech work force.
The numbers reported may seem large, but they’re often not reported as a proportion of overall wage spend, or indeed overall staffing. For some tech companies they are just a fraction of the massive amount of new hires initially acquired during the pandemic.
Big Tech is still a big employer, and its big products will continue to impact many aspects of our lives.
Affiliate links may be automatically generated – see our ethics statement for details.
Elon Musk’s team has been exploring using as much as $3 billion in new fundraising to help repay some of the $13 billion in debt tacked onto Twitter for his buyout of the company, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter.
According to the report, Musk‘s representatives discussed selling up to $3 billion (roughly Rs. 1,06,000 crore) in new Twitter shares in December.
Twitter did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. Responding to a question whether the WSJ report was accurate, Musk said “no” in a tweet.
The Tesla boss borrowed $13 billion (roughly Rs. 24,465 crore) to close the Twitter acquisition in October from a syndicate of banks including Morgan Stanley and Bank of America.
Musk’s team has said to people familiar with the finances of the company that an equity raise, if successful, could be used to pay down an unsecured portion of the debt that carries the highest interest rate within the $13 billion Twitter loan package, the report added.
Meanwhile, advertising spending on Twitter dropped by 71 percent in December, data from an advertising research firm showed, as top advertisers slashed their spending on the social-media platform after Elon Musk’s takeover.
The recent data by Standard Media Index (SMI) comes as Twitter is moving to reverse the advertiser exodus. It has introduced a slew of initiatives to win back advertisers, offering some free ads, lifting a ban on political advertising and allowing companies greater control over the positioning of their ads.
According to the SMI data, ad spending on Twitter in November fell 55 percent from last year despite these months traditionally being a time of higher ad spending as brands promote their products during the holiday season.
Twitter has about 2,300 active employees, Elon Musk said in a Tweet on Saturday. CNBC on Friday reported that Twitter’s full-time headcount has reduced to about 1,300 active, working employees, including fewer than 550 full-time engineers by title.
About 75 of the company’s 1,300 employees are on leave including about 40 engineers, CNBC said, citing internal records.
“The note is incorrect. There are about 2300 active, working employees at Twitter,” billionaire Musk tweeted in a response to a tweet quoting CNBC.
The note is incorrect. There are ~2300 active, working employees at Twitter.
There are still hundreds of employees working on trust & safety, along with several thousand contractors.
Less than 10 people from my other companies are working at Twitter.
“There are still hundreds of employees working on trust & safety, along with several thousand contractors,” Musk added.
Musk took over Twitter in October and swiftly moved through a number of product and organizational changes. The company rolled out Twitter-verified Blue check-mark as a paid service and also laid off about 50 percent staff.
Earlier this week, it was reported that Twitter plans to lay off 50 workers in the social media site’s product division in the coming weeks.
The layoffs, which come six weeks after top boss Elon Musk reportedly told staff that there would not be further retrenchment, could reduce the company’s headcount to under 2,000, according to the report.
Musk took over Twitter in October and swiftly moved through a number of product and organizational changes. The company rolled out Twitter-verified Blue check-mark as a paid service and also laid off about 50 percent staff. Musk had said in November that Twitter was facing “a massive drop in revenue” as advertisers dropped out.
Twitter’s revenue for the fourth quarter fell about 35 percent to $1.025 billion (roughly Rs. 8300 crore), a top ad executive revealed at a staff meeting, online publication the Information reported on Wednesday.
Elon Musk took the witness stand Friday to defend a 2018 tweet claiming he had lined up the financing to take Tesla private in a deal that never came close to happening.
The tweet resulted in a $40 million (roughly Rs. 323 crore) settlement with securities regulators. It also led to a class-action lawsuit alleging he misled investors, pulling him into court for about a half hour Friday to deliver sworn testimony in front of a nine-person jury and a full room of media and other spectators.
The trial was then adjourned for the weekend and Musk was told to return Monday to answer more questions.
In his initial appearance on the stand, Musk defended his prolific tweeting as “the most democratic way” to distribute information even while acknowledging constraints of Twitter’s 240-character limit can make it difficult to make everything as clear as possible.
“I think you can absolutely be truthful (on Twitter),” Musk asserted on the stand. “But can you be comprehensive? Of course not,”
Musk’s latest headache stems from the inherent brevity on Twitter, a service that he has been running since completing his $44 billion (roughly Rs.3,56,300 crore) purchase of it in October.
The trial hinges on the question of whether a pair of tweets that Musk posted on August 7, 2018, damaged Tesla shareholders during a 10-day period leading up to a Musk admission that the buyout he had envisioned wasn’t going to happen.
In the first of those two 2018 tweets, Musk stated “funding secured” for what would have been a $72 billion (roughly Rs. 5,83,100 crore) buyout of Tesla at a time when the electric automaker was still grappling with production problems and was worth far less than it is now. Musk followed up a few hours later with another tweet suggesting a deal was imminent.
After it became apparent that the money wasn’t in place to take Tesla private, Musk stepped down as Tesla’s chairman while remaining CEO as part of the Securities and Exchange Commission settlement, without acknowledging any wrongdoing.
The impulsive billionaire came into court wearing a dark suit and tie on the third day of the civil trial in San Francisco that his lawyer unsuccessfully tried to move to Texas, where Tesla is now headquartered, on the premise that media coverage of his tumultuous takeover of Twitter had tainted the jury pool.
The jury that was assembled earlier this week focused intently on Musk while he answered questions posed by Nicholas Porritt, a lawyer representing Tesla shareholders. At one point, Musk asked Porritt if he would speak closer to the microphone so he could hear him better. At other times, Musk craned his neck as he gazed around the courtroom.
Musk, 51, said he cares “a great deal” about investors and also railed against short sellers who make investments that reward them when a company’s stock price falls. He called short selling an “evil” practice that should be outlawed, denigrating those who profit from it as “a bunch of sharks.”
When shown communications from Tesla investors urging him to curtail or completely stop his Twitter habit before the 2018 buyout tweet, Musk said he couldn’t remember all those interactions from years ago, especially since he gets a “Niagara Falls” of emails.
Even before Musk took the stand, U.S. District Judge Edward Chen had declared that the jurors can consider those two tweets to be false, leaving them to decide whether Musk deliberately deceived investors and whether his statements saddled them with losses.
Musk has previously contended he entered into the SEC settlement under duress and maintained he believed he had locked up financial backing for a Tesla buyout during meetings with representatives from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.
An expert on corporate buyouts hired by shareholder lawyers to study the events surrounding Musk’s proposal to take Tesla private spent the bulk of his three hours on the stand Friday deriding the plan as an ill-conceived concept.
“This proposal was an extreme outlier,” said Guhan Subramanian, a Harvard University business and law professor for more than 20 years. “It was incoherent. It was illusory.”
In a lengthy cross examination that delayed Musk’s appearance, a lawyer for Tesla’s board of directors tried to undermine Subramanian’s testimony by pointing out that it relied on graduate student assistance to review some of the material related to the August 2018 tweets. The lawyer, William Price, also noted Subramanian’s $1,900-per-hour (roughly Rs. 1,53,900) fee for compiling his report for the case.
The trial over his Tesla tweets come at a time when Musk has been focusing on Twitter while also serving as the automaker’s CEO and also remaining deeply involved in SpaceX, the rocket ship company he founded.
Musk’s leadership of Twitter — where he has gutted the staff and alienated users and advertisers — has proven unpopular among Tesla’s current stockholders, who are worried he has been devoting less time steering the automaker at a time of intensifying competition. Those concerns contributed to a 65 percent decline in Tesla’s stock last year that wiped out more than $700 billion (roughly Rs. 56,68,900 crore) in shareholder wealth — far more than the $14 billion (roughly Rs. 1,13,400 crore) swing in fortune that occurred between the company’s high and low stock prices during the August 7-17, 2018 period covered in the class-action lawsuit.
Tesla’s stock has split twice since then, making the $420 (roughly Rs. 34,000) buyout price cited in his 2018 tweet worth $28 (roughly Rs. 2,300) on adjusted basis now. The company’s shares were trading around $133.42 (roughly Rs. 10,800) Friday, down from the company’s November 2021 split-adjusted peak of $414.50 (roughly Rs. 33,600).
After Musk dropped the idea of a Tesla buyout, the company overcame its production problems, resulting in a rapid upturn in car sales that caused its stock to soar and minted Musk as the world’s richest person until he bought Twitter. Musk dropped from the top spot on the wealth list after the stock market’s backlash to his handling of Twitter.
When asked Friday about the challenges that Tesla faced in 2018, he recalled spending many nights sleeping at the automaker’s California factory as he tried to keep the company afloat.
“The sheer level of pain to make Tesla successful during that 2017, 2018 period was excruciating,” he recalled.
Affiliate links may be automatically generated – see our ethics statement for details.
Twitter has silently updated its developer terms to ban all third-party clients on the platform. The firm’s 5,000-word developer agreement was reportedly updated with a stipulation prohibiting “use or access the Licensed Materials to create or attempt to create a substitute or similar service or product to the Twitter Applications.” Even before the terms were updated, third-party apps like Tweetbot and Twitterific on Android and iOS were shut down by the company last week. At the time, the company’s API status page did not reflect any change, and Twitter did not provide an explanation until earlier this week when it claimed it was “enforcing long-standing API rules.”
The updated developer terms were first spotted by Engadget. The terms, which were updated on Thursday, make it clear in the “restrictions” section that developers are no longer permitted to use Twitter’s API or content to “create or attempt to create a substitute or similar service or product to the Twitter Applications.” That is the only noteworthy addition to the 5,000-word agreement, as per the report.
The term “Twitter Applications” pertains to the company’s “consumer facing products, services, applications, websites, web pages, platforms, and other offerings, including without limitation, those offered via https://twitter.com and Twitter’s mobile applications.” As verifiedvia the Wayback Machine’s archival service, the clause prohibiting alternative apps was incorporated into the rules with the most recent update.
Before this modification, it was reported last week that several third-party apps like Tweetbot and Twitterific on iOS, as well as Fenix on Android, were unable to access Twitter services. At the time, no changes were notified and no issues with service were noted on Twitter’s API status page.
Twitter stated earlier this week that it was “enforcing long-standing API rules” by denying clients access to its platform but did not specify which rules were broken.
This new move from Elon Musk’s Twitter is not seen favourably. Twitterrific’s Sean Heber described Twitter as “increasingly capricious” and a company he “no longer recognise[d] as trustworthy nor want to work with any longer” in a blog post. In an interview with Engadget, Fenix developer Matteo Villa said, “It’s not totally unexpected,” but called the lack of communication “insulting.” Musk slashed the firm’s communications department as party of company-wide layoffs last November.
Twitter’s stance on third-party clients has long been tolerant. with the company previously removing a section from its developer terms that deterred developers from replicating its core service.
However, third-party apps on Twitter do not support sponsored posts or advertisements like the official apps, so the company does not profit from users on those apps. Since taking over as CEO of Twitter last year, Elon Musk has been working to increase the company’s revenue. The company, which has $12.5 billion (Rs. 1,01,500 crore) in debt, is due $300 million (roughly Rs. 2,400 crore) in interest payments and has lost a projected $4 billion (roughly Rs. 32,500) in value since Musk bought it at the end of October 2022.
Affiliate links may be automatically generated – see our ethics statement for details.
Tesla shareholders argued it would be unfair to move the trial to Texas as requested by Musk, who has outraged many in Northern California with the steep job cuts he ordered at Twitter, a San Francisco company he bought in October.
“What they refer to as ‘biased’ coverage is, in fact, factual reporting about his management of Twitter, and has no bearing on the jury’s ability to render a fair verdict,” said the court filing by the shareholders.
Musk‘s lawyers requested on January 6 that the federal judge delay or move the trial to Texas due to media coverage of Twitter‘s job cuts that was “inflammatory” compared with balanced reporting on layoffs at other companies in the city like Lyft.
Videos of an audience booing Musk during a surprise appearance at a Dave Chappelle show in San Francisco in December were circulated online. “It sounds like some of the people you fired are in the audience,” the comedian said in the clip.
Musk later admitted it was “a lot of boos” and added in a now-deleted tweet: “It’s almost as if I’ve offended SF’s unhinged leftists … but nahhh.”
Tesla moved its headquarters from the San Francisco area to Texas in 2021.
The trial is scheduled to start on January 17 and feature testimony from Musk about his behind-the-scenes efforts in 2018 to line up financing to buy out the electric vehicle maker.
The judge will hear arguments on the requested venue change on Friday.
Shareholders accuse Musk of causing billions of dollars in losses for investors by making false and misleading statements to artificially inflate the stock price. Musk tweeted in August 2018 that he had “funding secured” to take Tesla private, sparking 10 days of volatile trading in its stock shares, bonds and options.
Defendants, which also include Tesla and its board at the time, will make their case that Musk was not misleading investors in a material way. Musk had met Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the managing director of Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, on multiple occasions, according to the court filing, which also said Al-Rumayyan had urged Musk to take Tesla private and offered up to $60 billion (roughly Rs. 4,90,290 crore) in backing.
Al-Rumayyan is among the witnesses expected to testify along with Oracle Corp co-founder Larry Ellison and James Murdoch, son of Fox Chairman Rupert Murdoch, according to court filings.
US District Court Judge Edward Chen determined in May that the 2018 tweets were untrue and reckless. The jury will determine if the statements actually impacted Tesla’s share prices, whether Musk acted knowingly and whether to award damages and in what amount.
We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously.
Cookie
Duration
Description
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional
11 months
The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy
11 months
The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
