Elon Musk, the former richest man in the world — and frequent sparring partner with Democrats on Twitter — met with Kevin McCarthy and Hakeem Jeffries. | Cathleen Allison/AP Photo
Elon Musk stopped by the Capitol on Thursday, popping into House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s office to wish him happy birthday — and to talk about Washington’s favorite social media platform.
The former richest man in the world — and frequent sparring partner with Democrats on Twitter — met with McCarthy and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, tweeting that they talked about “ensuring that this platform is fair to both parties.” It was apparently Musk’s first visit to the Capitol in the 118th Congress, but he managed to maneuver his way through the complex without answering any questions from reporters.
After a reporter tweeted out an initial Musk sighting, a gaggle of journalists descended on the speaker’s office around 4:30 p.m. About 30 minutes later, McCarthy emerged, telling reporters that Musk came by to wish him happy birthday (the California lawmaker’s birthday is in fact today) and that they had been friends for a long time.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Elon Musk testified on Friday as part of a trial over a 2018 tweet in which he claimed to have “funding secured” to take Tesla private, a tweet that shareholders allege cost them millions in trading losses.
The Tesla CEO appeared in a San Francisco federal courtroom and defended himself by saying that “just because I tweet something does not mean people believe it or will act accordingly”.
Musk’s testimony began with questions about his use of Twitter, the social media platform he bought in October. He called it the most democratic way to communicate but said his tweets did not always affect Tesla stock the way he expected.
The class-action trial in San Francisco federal court centers on allegations that the Tesla CEO lied when he sent the tweet, costing investors. Earlier on Friday morning, investor Timothy Fries told the jury how he lost $5,000 buying Tesla stock after Musk sent the tweet at the center of the lawsuit.
The case is a rare securities class-action trial and the plaintiffs have already cleared high legal hurdles, with the US judge Edward Chen ruling last year that Musk’s post was untruthful and reckless.
Fries told the jury that funding secured meant to him that “there had been some vetting, some critical review of those funding sources”.
Musk, wearing a dark suit over a white button-down shirt, testified for less than 30 minutes before court adjourned until Monday. He spoke softly and in a sometimes bemused manner, a contrast to his occasional combative testimony in past trials.
Musk described the difficulties the company went through around the time he sent the “funding secured” tweet, including bets by short-sellers that the stock would fall.
“A bunch of sharks on Wall Street wanted Tesla to die, very badly,” he said, describing short-sellers, who profit when a stock falls in price.
Musk’s attorney, Alex Spiro, told the jury in his opening statement on Wednesday that Musk believed he had financing from Saudi backers and was taking steps to make the deal happen. Fearing leaks to the media, Musk tried to protect the “everyday shareholder” by sending the tweet, which contained “technical inaccuracies”, Spiro said.
Guhan Subramanian, a Harvard Law School professor, told the jury that Musk’s behavior in 2018 lacked the hallmarks of traditional corporate dealmaking by tweeting his interest in Tesla without proper financial or legal analysis.
“Compared to the standard template it’s an extreme outlier,” said Subramanian, who called Musk’s approach “unprecedented” and “incoherent”.
A jury of nine will decide whether the tweet artificially inflated Tesla’s share price by playing up the status of funding for the deal, and if so, by how much.
The defendants include current and former Tesla directors, whom Spiro said had “pure” motives in their response to Musk’s plan.
Reuters contributed to this report
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
The US President, Joe Biden, is 80 today, which is one thing. On the other hand, Elon Musk restored access to Donald Trump’s account on Twitter on Saturday, lifting a ban that had prevented the former president from using the social media platform ever since a pro Trump mob attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, as Congress prepared to certify Joe Biden’s election victory.
Following a vote asking Twitter users if Trump’s account should be reinstated, Musk made the announcement in the evening. With a majority of 51.8%, “yes” was chosen. Before deciding whether to reinstate suspended accounts, Musk had previously stated that Twitter would set up new rules and a “content moderation council.”
“The people have had their say. Trump will get his job back. Musk used the Latin term “Vox Populi, Vox Dei,” which translates to “the voice of the people, the voice of God,” in his tweet.
Shortly later, Trump’s account, which had earlier looked to be suspended, returned on the platform with all of his prior tweets—more than 59,000 in all. At least initially, his supporters had vanished, but he quickly started getting them back. But as of late Saturday, there have been no new tweets from the account.
Less than a month after Tesla CEO Elon Musk took over Twitter and four days after Trump declared his campaign for the 2024 presidential election, Musk restored the account.
Trump may or may not truly come back to Twitter. Trump, who was an unstoppable tweeter prior to his suspension, has previously claimed that he would not return even if his account was reactivated. He has been relying on Truth Social, a far more modest social media platform that he started after being banned from Twitter.
Additionally, on Saturday, Trump mentioned Musk’s poll in a video address to a gathering of Republican Jews in Las Vegas, but added that he thought Twitter had “a lot of problems.”
“I hear we’re receiving a lot of support to also return to Twitter. I don’t see it because I can’t think of a good explanation for it, said Trump. He said, seemingly alluding to the recent internal turmoil at Twitter, “It may make it, it may not make it.”
Trump’s potential return to the platform comes in the wake of Musk’s purchase of Twitter last month, which sparked widespread worries that the site’s billionaire owner would enable the propagation of lies and misinformation. Musk has often stated his opinion that Twitter has become too censorship-heavy for free speech.
His attempts to redesign the area have been both quick and disorganised. Many of the 7,500 full-time employees and incalculable numbers of contractors who are in charge of content moderation and other critical duties have been fired by Musk. A large number of employees, including hundreds of software engineers, resigned as a result of his demand that the remaining staff promise to work “very hardcore.”
Following the mass layoffs and staff migration, users have noted more spam and frauds on their feeds and in their direct messages, among other issues. Twitter may soon deteriorate to the point where it could actually crash, according to some programmers who were fired or resigned this week.
More than 15 million people participated in Musk’s online survey, which was published on his personal Twitter account.
Musk acknowledged that the findings lacked much rigour. He tweeted early on Saturday that “Bot & troll armies might be running out of steam shortly.” “Some intriguing insights to improve polling in the future.”
He has employed Twitter polling before to help him make business decisions. Following a poll of his supporters, he decided to sell millions of shares of Tesla stock last year.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat from New York, tweeted a video of the uprising on January 6 in response to Musk’s poll on Trump. On Friday, she wrote that Trump’s last tweets “were used to fuel an insurrection, many people died, the US Vice President was almost assassinated, and hundreds were injured but I guess that’s not enough for you to answer the question.” It’s a poll on Twitter.
Two days after Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol and shortly after the former president urged them to “fight like hell,” he was denied access to Twitter. After Trump sent out two tweets that Twitter claimed raised concerns about the integrity of the election and threatened the inauguration of Vice President Biden, the website shut off his account.
Trump was also banned from Snapchat, Facebook, and Instagram, all of which are owned by Meta Platforms, after the incident on January 6. Additionally suspended was his capacity to upload videos to his YouTube page. In January, Facebook plans to review its decision to suspend Trump.
Trump’s use of social media throughout his time as president presented a significant challenge to major social media platforms that aimed to strike a balance between the public’s desire to hear from public officials and concerns about false information, bigotry, harassment, and incitement to violence.
However, Musk claimed that Twitter’s move to block Trump was “morally awful” and “very idiotic” in a speech at an auto convention in May.
Musk announced earlier this month that the firm would not permit anyone who had been banned from the site to rejoin until Twitter had developed policies for doing so, including creating a “content moderation committee.” Musk completed the $44 billion buyout of Twitter in late October.
Musk tweeted on Friday that the comedian Kathy Griffin, the Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson, and the conservative Christian news satire website Babylon Bee have had their suspended Twitter accounts returned. He emphasised that a choice had not yet been made regarding Trump. On Twitter, he also replied “no” to a request to revive conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ account.
The Tesla CEO referred to the new content policy as “freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach” in a tweet on Friday.
He said that although a tweet that was regarded to be “negative” or to include “hate” would be permitted on the website, only users who explicitly looked for it would be able to view it. According to Musk, such tweets would also be “demonetized, so no adverts or other money to Twitter.”
(With inputs from various media organisations)
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