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Elon Musk Blames ‘Activists’ for His Twitter Moderation Council Lie

Elon Musk is trying to clarify why he allowed Donald Trump, as well as others back onto Twitter social media platform despite promising that the decision would be made by a content moderation council comprised of people with “widely diverse viewpoints”.

On Tuesday, in a tweet, he stated the council was a part of the agreement he formed with an unnamed large group of political/social activist groups, indicating it was their fault.

“A large coalition of political/social activist groups agreed not to try to kill Twitter by starving us of advertising revenue if I agreed to this condition,” he said in a tweet. “They broke the deal.” He added.
Source: business-standard.com

Musk claims he made a deal with those groups to keep them from destroying Twitter’s advertising revenue, claiming that those groups “broke the deal,” so he no longer has to defend the council.

Musk unbanned Jordan Peterson, Kathy Griffin, and The Babylon Bee earlier this month prior to actually running a poll asking his fans if people would want to see Donald Trump returned on the platform, tweeting “Vox Populi, Vox Dei,” which interprets to “the voices of the people is the voice of God.”

The following day, without mentioning the council, Elon Musk declared that Donald Trump would be reinstated based on the poll data even though the previous president and present presidential candidate has yet to resume tweeting.

It’s certainly not the first time Elon Musk has called out activists. He wrote on Twitter earlier this month that activist groups were pressuring advertisers in an attempt to obliterate free speech in America. In the meantime, The Verge has obtained documents from one of the three main advertising agencies advising clients to discontinue running campaigns on the platform.

Omnicom Media Group and others cited adherence, imitation, a lack of restraint, and how the mass layoffs will highly impact the company’s ability to operate, rather than political or social activist pressure.

Suhani Jain

I am a student pursuing my bachelor’s in information technology. I have a interest in writing so, I am working a freelance content writer because I enjoy writing. I also write poetries. I believe in the quote by anne frank “paper has more patience than person

Elon Musk says Twitter is done with layoffs and ready to hire again

Elon Musk is hiring again after firing roughly two-thirds of Twitter’s 7,500 employees in only three weeks.

According to a tweet from a The Verge reporter, Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk assured employees in an all-hands meet that the business does not expect future layoffs and is hiring for engineering and ad sales positions. Musk stated that Twitter is hiring for engineering and ad sales positions and that there are no further planned layoffs.

According to The Verge, Musk declared during the meeting that he planned to decentralize Twitter by establishing technical teams in Brazil, Japan, India, and other countries. He asserted throughout the discussion that Twitter’s technological stack has to be completely rebuilt.

Additionally, he asserted that somewhat decentralizing things is a good idea. Musk made a suggestion that engineering teams might also be established in India as part of this.

However, Twitter does not currently have any job vacancies advertised on its website, and Musk did not name the specific technical or sales positions for which the company was recruiting. During the meeting, he stated, “In terms of critical hires, I would say people who are great at writing software are the highest priority.” Last week, The Verge reported that Twitter recruiters had begun contacting engineers and inviting them to join “Twitter 2.0 — an Elon company.”

During a half-hour Q&A session with staff members from Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters, Musk claimed there are “no plans” to transfer Twitter headquarters to Texas, as he did with Tesla, but that it may make sense to have “dual-headquartered” offices in Texas and California.

Anyone joining Twitter today will do so in a far smaller organization than it was prior to Musk’s takeover. The precise number of exits during his tenure is unknown, but before he fired over half the workforce, there were almost 7,400 workers with access to Twitter’s internal systems.

Long-serving engineers, some of whom had served the company for over ten years, as well as an increasing number of corporate leaders, have left the company. On Musk’s first day, Twitter’s CEO, CFO, and chief legal officer were all fired.

The executives of Twitter’s biggest content and advertising partnerships have either left their positions or been fired. As per former and current employees, several “essential” teams were totally destroyed by the layoffs and resignations.

Another significant change is the suspension of Twitter’s $8 subscription-based “Blue Verification” mark’s re-launch. Elon Musk has also temporarily suspended the “Blue Verified” badge “until there is high confidence of stopping impersonation”.

According to Musk, the social media giant is delaying the rollout of a new system for awarding verified ticks to users and may instead employ other “colour checks” to verify businesses and people. Musk also mentioned that Twitter will soon be in a position to compete with YouTube in terms of offering a video streaming service, dropping a hint that Twitter may do so with “higher compensation for creators” and a pleasant video experience.

The new Twitter CEO today advised Twitter critics to go on other social media sites and ended his statement with the Hindi greeting “Namaste.” He tweeted,” Hope all judgy hall monitors stay on other platforms – please, I’m begging u.”

Sandhya Gupta

I am a law graduate from NLU Lucknow. I have a flair for creative writing and hence in my free time work as a freelance content writer.

Elon Musk puts Twitter’s Blue Verified relaunch on hold

Leave a Comment / News, Tech News / By Suhani Jain

If you didn’t take advantage of the opportunity to give Elon Musk 7.99 USD for a blue check for your Twitter account while you could, you may even have to wait a little longer. Originally scheduled to reintroduce on November 29, Elon Musk wrote on Twitter on Monday evening that the twitter’s blue verified feature will be postponed, indefinitely, until there is a greater probability of stopping identity theft.

The initial release of Twitter Blue Verified or known as the “I-paid-Elon-$7.99” Blue Tick was a complete disaster. Obviously, the feature instantly became favourable to assist bad actors in trying to impersonate celebrities, corporate entities, and political figures.

one user account tried to imitate the drug manufacturer Eli Lilly and was announcing that insulin is free in the name of the company. Before it was removed, the tweet had been viewed a million times. The stock of the company fell 4.37 per cent.

Elon Musk went on to say that Twitter will most likely use a check of a different colour for organisations than individuals. Twitter has already experimented with using a grey official classification underneath high-profile accounts, although the feature has been turned on and off numerous times since it was first introduced.

According to The Verge, Musk also discussed working to develop features such as encoded personal messages and videoconferencing in an intrinsic presentation termed Twitter 2.0. This isn’t the first time he has mentioned implementing end-to-end encrypted DMs.

Musk insinuated that Twitter is progressing on this feature in a tweet in response to app researcher Jane Manchun Wong’s tweet, which outlined code related to that. The Twitter CEO stated earlier this month that the “goal of Twitter DM is to superset Signal.”

As some Twitter users experiment with alternative platforms such as Mastodon and Hive, Elon Musk claims that Twitter added 1.6 million monetizable daily active customers in the recent week, bringing the company’s total to 259.4 million. Notably, Musk engaged in a months-long legal battle after deeming these same metrics inaccurate in an attempt to backtrack on his Twitter purchase.

Suhani Jain

Elon Musk says in court he doesn’t want to be CEO of any company, tries to walk back SEC insults

Leave a Comment / News, Tech News / By Sandhya Gupta

Elon Musk stated in court on Wednesday that he doesn’t desire to lead any company as a CEO.Musk made the casual remark while responding to queries from attorneys for Tesla. He stated, “ I frankly don’t want to be the CEO of any company”.

Judge Kathaleen St. J. McCormick of the Delaware Chancery Court is hearing testimony in a case to decide whether Musk, the richest man in the world, should be required to surrender stock options granted as part of his compensation package to Tesla.

The trial, which began on Monday, will examine whether Tesla’s board acted properly when it authorized Musk’s compensation package, which, at the current share price, is currently estimated to be worth $52 billion. It will also examine if Elon had any undue influence on the decision.

Richard J. Tornetta, a shareholder, has filed a lawsuit against Musk and Tesla, claiming that the CEO’s salary was exorbitant and that the Tesla board’s approval of it constituted a violation of its fiduciary obligations. According to Tornetta, the board gave a part-time boss the biggest remuneration package in the world.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs questioned Musk about previous taunts he directed at the Securities and Exchange Commission and whether it was a good idea for him to have a hostile demeanor with regulators. “SEC, three letter acronym, middle word is Elon’s” Musk wrote in a tweet on July 2, 2020, when Tesla share price was experiencing a sharp rise.

Many people perceived the message to be filthy in nature and to be a serious insult to the regulating agency. Attorneys questioned Musk about his tweet in the Delaware court, and Musk said that it had been widely misinterpreted. Although the tweet was “interpreted differently,” Tesla CEO claimed in court that he intended the initials to signify “Save Elon’s Company.”

Elon Musk stated in court, “In general, I think the mission of the SEC is good but the question is whether that mission is being executed well. In some cases I think it is not. The SEC fails to investigate things that they should and places far too much attention on things that are not relevant.

The recent FTX thing I think is an example of that. Why was there no attention given to FTX? Investors lost billions. Yet the SEC continues to hound me despite shareholders being greatly rewarded. This makes no sense.”

When Musk claimed in tweets in 2018, that he was considering taking Tesla private at $420 per share and had “funding secured,” the SEC filed charges against Tesla and Elon Musk for making “false and misleading” assertions to shareholders. Following Musk’s tweets, the value of Tesla shares increased by more than 6%, and trading was suspended the same day.

For several weeks following the incident, Tesla’s share prices were volatile. In a settlement deal, Tesla and Musk stipulated that Musk would forfeit his position as chairman of Tesla for three years, pay a $20 million penalty, and refrain from denying the SEC’s claims or claiming innocence.

Musk and Tesla also agreed to have the CEO’s tweets reviewed by a securities attorney before publication if they contained important information about the company that would affect the value of Tesla’s stock.

The attorneys for Tornetta questioned Musk on whether he had a securities attorney evaluate all of his tweets regarding Tesla and why he had maintained maintaining his innocence, even in press appearances.

Musk appeared to admit that he doesn’t have a lawyer first review all of his tweets on Tesla. He stated, “The consent decree was made under duress. An agreement made under duress is not valid, as a foundation of law.”

Sandhya Gupta

I am a law graduate from NLU Lucknow. I have a flair for creative writing and hence in my free time work as a freelance content writer.

Elon Musk publicly fires Twitter engineers who call him out online

Leave a Comment / News, Tech News / By Sandhya Gupta

Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter Inc., has resorted to terminating company engineers who openly disagree with him on the social media platform.

The argument started when Elon Musk apologized for the Twitter Android app being “super slow in many countries.” He asserted that was the result of the app’s poor writing. He tweeted, “Btw, I’d like to apologize for Twitter being super slow in many countries. App is doing >1000 poorly batched RPCs just to render a home timeline!”

After that, Eric Frohnhoefer, a Twitter engineer, who worked on the Twitter Android app asserted that Mr. Musk’s statement was inaccurate in a quote tweet. Given that he has been working on Twitter’s Android app for about six years, Eric Fraunhoefer asserted that he “can say this is wrong.”

Although Mr. Frohnhoefer acknowledged that Android has “plenty of room for performance improvements,” he disagreed with Mr. Musk’s explanation for the origin of the speed issues.

He claimed that the features that few users utilize, the bloated nature of the app over time as a result of attempts to make additional upgrades, and the poor network communication were the real causes of the issues. Frohnhoefer recommended Twitter to prioritize streamlining the app by getting rid of unnecessary features and limiting the number of new ones.

The two then carried on arguing about Twitter in general, including talking about its lunches at headquarters, as well as the Android app particularly.

Frohnhoefer attempted to express his thoughts in a series of tweets, but one person questioned him as to why he hadn’t privately given his new boss his opinion. Frohnhoefer who has been an engineer at Twitter for over eight years, retorted, “Maybe he should ask questions privately. Maybe use Slack or email.”

Numerous others pointed out that Frohnhoefer was probably placing himself in danger by publicly correcting Twitter’s new owner, particularly given the fact that he has already laid off about half the company’s staff. These warnings came true on Monday. Mr. Musk announced the engineer’s firing via Twitter.

While this was going on, one of the users tagged Musk and asked if he wanted “this kind of attitude” on his team. Musk spoke bluntly and responded, ” He’s Fired”. Frohnhoefer replied by tweeting a salute emoji.

Mr. Frohnhoefer had said he had a variety of opportunities if he was to leave Twitter. He stated that his LinkedIn has “never been more popular,” and a Reddit developer publicly messaged him to recommend that he apply there instead.

Ben Leib, another engineer, lost his job after criticizing Musk. He retweeted the same post from Musk and wrote, “As the former tech lead for timelines infrastructure at Twitter, I can confidently say that this man has no idea wtf he’s talking about.” Leib, who spent ten years working for Twitter, acknowledged his termination to Bloomberg on Sunday.

There has been a frenzy of changes ever since Twitter was acquired by entrepreneur Elon Musk. Musk has made several significant changes to Twitter, including the announcement of Twitter Blue, an $8 monthly membership service, and the firing of close to 50% of the staff.

Many employees are still angry with Musk’s decision to fire half of the company’s 7,000+ employees, including most of the senior management, just one week after his $44 billion acquisition. Additionally, the tycoon rapidly altered the organization’s workplace culture.

Although it was not common practice for Twitter employees to publicly criticize the company’s leadership in the past, before Musk arrived, many employees voiced their concerns or criticisms via email and internal Slack channels.

Sandhya Gupta

I am a law graduate from NLU Lucknow. I have a flair for creative writing and hence in my free time work as a freelance content writer.

Former Tesla Australia director pleads guilty to insider trading on lithium deal

Leave a Comment / News, Tech News / By Sandhya Gupta

A former Tesla director has admitted to insider trading after gaining over $30,000 from buying shares of a lithium business 12 days before the company announced a significant contract with Tesla.

A former executive of Tesla’s Australian unit admitted guilty to two occasions of insider trading based on a supply agreement Tesla signed with Piedmont Lithium in 2020. Kurt Schlosser purchased 86,748 shares of U.S.-based Piedmont in September 2020, according to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), after learning the specifics of the five-year spodumene concentrate supply agreement with the company.

The ASIC claimed that once the deal was publicly disclosed and the share price increased, Schlosser sold his Piedmont stocks for a profit of about $28,883. According to the watchdog, Schlosser also disclosed the information to a friend who was most likely to invest in the company.

Piedmont Lithium announced in September 2020 that it has signed a legally binding five-year contract to provide Tesla with a third of its anticipated 160,000 tonnes per year of spodumene concentrate production, a hard rock ore commodity used to make battery-grade lithium compounds. The company’s share price increased six times following the deal.

The company intended to supply the concentrate for Tesla between July 2022-July 2023 However, due to delays in the approval procedure for its mine facility in North Carolina, it had to postpone delivery to Tesla indefinitely last year. The agreement was primarily seen as a way to reduce volatility in the commodity, whose value had been declining since 2019.

Many automakers directly signed such deals with mining companies. The support of a major automaker like Tesla can assist early-stage mining companies like Piedmont to get funding from lenders and enhance their financial position.

Former Tesla Director has not yet received a punishment and will show up in court on December 16 in Sydney District Court. The maximum punishment for insider trading, according to ASIC, is 15 years behind bars.

Piedmont Lithium has dual listings in the US and Australia. The company changed its principal listing to New York, USA last year and relocated its headquarters from Australia to the USA.

Recently, a power steering issue in the Model X and Model S vehicles sold between 2017-2020 led to the recall of over 1000 Tesla vehicles in Australia. On Wednesday, the Department of Transport released the advisory, warning that the issue might raise the possibility of collisions that cause “serious injury or death to vehicle occupants and other road users.”

The most recent Australian Tesla recall was issued for 1012 Tesla vehicles due to a possibility that their Electronic Power Assist Steering system could lose power and demand “a greater steering effort from the driver,”, especially at low speeds. There have been two Tesla recalls in Australia in the past two weeks. In the prior recall, 326 Model 3 cars had a seatbelt problem.

Recently, U.S. Senator Ed Markey reportedly warned Elon Musk to fix his companies “or Congress will,” while the U.S. Federal Trade Commission said it was closely monitoring recent events at Twitter “with deep worry.”

Sandhya Gupta

I am a law graduate from NLU Lucknow. I have a flair for creative writing and hence in my free time work as a freelance content writer.

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