Twitter’s merger agreement with Musk stipulates that Musk can tweet about the deal while it is pending ‘so long as such Tweets do not disparage the Company or any of its Representatives’
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Apr 28, 2022 • 6 hours ago • 3 minute read • 176 Comments
Elon Musk’s criticism of a content decisions made by Twitter’s legal team is raising questions about his compliance with a non-disparagement agreement and the tone that the social media platform’s incoming owner will set for its users.
Musk tweeted he disagreed with a decision Twitter made in 2020 to restrict the distribution of a New York Post article about U.S. President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter. The billionaire, who has about 87 million Twitter followers, called the company’s decision to lock the Post’s account on the platform “incredibly inappropriate.” His comment was followed by a wave of abusive tweets directed against the company’s top lawyer, Vijaya Gadde.
Musk, who on Monday reached a deal to acquire Twitter for $44 billion, was responding to a tweet by a podcast host Saagar Enjeti about Gadde, the executive who oversees Twitter’s policy and legal teams. Enjeti described Gadde as “the top censorship advocate at Twitter who famously gaslit the world on Joe Rogan’s podcast and censored the Hunter Biden laptop story.” Gadde then became the subject of a wave of personal attacks by Twitter users on the platform.
Twitter’s merger agreement with Musk stipulates that Musk can tweet about the deal while it is pending “so long as such Tweets do not disparage the Company or any of its Representatives.” There was no indication that Twitter, which inked the deal with Musk after deciding his offer was attractive, would seek to cancel the sale because of his recent criticism.
Representatives for Musk and Twitter did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Gadde could not be reached for comment.
Dick Costolo, a former chief executive of Twitter, criticized Musk for the move. “Bullying is not leadership.. What’s going on? You’re making an executive at the company you just bought the target of harassment and threats,” Costolo tweeted.
Musk then tweeted back at Costolo: “What are talking about? I’m just saying Twitter needs to be politically neutral.”
Musk also weighed in on a discussion about Twitter’s deputy general counsel, Jim Baker. In response to critical comments made in a tweet by right-wing conspiracy theorist Mike Chernovich alleging Baker “facilitated fraud,” Musk responded: “Sounds pretty bad.”
Baker did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment.
Katie Harbath, a former public policy director at Meta Platform Inc’s Facebook who now leads consultancy Anchor Change, said Musk’s criticism of Twitter’s content moderation raises concerns that he could overrule recommendations from the team charged with setting policy and procedure.
A key question, Harbath said, is whether Musk is “going to replace people inside of Twitter with people who go along with his viewpoints.”
Others worried that Twitter’s efforts to deal with harassment, misogyny and misinformation might take a backward step under Musk.
“Musk’s pursuit of his normal daily activities on Twitter exacerbate the worst aspects of the site and undercut the good work that folks at Twitter have been doing,” said Adam Conner, vice president for technology policy at the Center for American Progress.
While Musk’s activity on Twitter is attracting new scrutiny because of his deal on Monday to acquire the company, the world’s richest person is no stranger to controversy and criticism on the platform.
Last October, Musk criticized Missy Cummings, a Duke University professor who was hired by the U.S. vehicle safety regulator as an advisor, in a tweet that was followed by personal attacks online on Cummings. A longtime critic of Tesla’s driver assistant software, Cummings subsequently deleted her Twitter account.
In 2018, Musk called a British diver “a pedo guy” after he downplayed Musk’s idea of using SpaceX’s mini-submarine to rescue a boys’ soccer team trapped in a cave in Thailand.
“If he proves incapable of tamping down the polarization, Twitter will slowly start to become less relevant because certain types of conversations will no longer be able to take place on it,” said David A. Kirsch, an associate professor of management and entrepreneurship at the University of Maryland.
— Additional reporting from Bloomberg and National Post
Tesla has promised to start selling cheaper models next year, days after a Reuters report revealed that the company had shelved its plans for an all-new Tesla that would cost only $25,000.
The news that Tesla was scrapping the Model 2 came amid a drop in sales and profits, and a decision to slash a tenth of the company’s global workforce. Reuters also noted increased competition from Chinese EV makers.
Tesla’s deliveries slumped in the first quarter for the first annual drop since the start of the pandemic in 2020, missing analyst forecasts by a mile in a sign that even price cuts haven’t been able to stave off an increasingly heated competition on the EV market.
Profits dropped by 50%, disappointing investors and leading to a slump in the company’s share prices, which made any good news urgently needed. Tesla delivered: it said it would bring forward the date for the release of new, lower-cost models. These would be produced on its existing platform and rolled out in the second half of 2025, per the BBC.
Reuters cited the company as warning that this change of plans could “result in achieving less cost reduction than previously expected,” however. This suggests the price tag of the new models is unlikely to be as small as the $25,000 promised for the Model 2.
The decision is based on a substantially reduced risk appetite in Tesla’s management, likely affected by the recent financial results and the intensifying competition with Chinese EV makers. Shelving the Model 2 and opting instead for cars to be produced on existing manufacturing lines is the safer move in these “uncertain times”, per the company.
Tesla is also cutting prices, as many other EV makers are doing amid a palpable decline in sales in key markets such as Europe, where the phaseout of subsidies has hit demand for EVs seriously. The cut is of about $2,000 on all models that Tesla currently sells.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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Divisions within the Bank of Canada over the timing of a much-anticipated cut to its key overnight interest rate stem from concerns of some members of the central bank’s governing council that progress on taming inflation could stall in the face of stronger domestic demand — or even pick up again in the event of “new surprises.”
“Some members emphasized that, with the economy performing well, the risk had diminished that restrictive monetary policy would slow the economy more than necessary to return inflation to target,” according to a summary of deliberations for the April 10 rate decision that were published Wednesday. “They felt more reassurance was needed to reduce the risk that the downward progress on core inflation would stall, and to avoid jeopardizing the progress made thus far.”
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Others argued that there were additional risks from keeping monetary policy too tight in light of progress already made to tame inflation, which had come down “significantly” across most goods and services.
Some pointed out that the distribution of inflation rates across components of the consumer price index had approached normal, despite outsized price increases and decreases in certain components.
“Coupled with indicators that the economy was in excess supply and with a base case projection showing the output gap starting to close only next year, they felt there was a risk of keeping monetary policy more restrictive than needed.”
In the end, though, the central bankers agreed to hold the rate at five per cent because inflation remained too high and there were still upside risks to the outlook, albeit “less acute” than in the past couple of years.
Despite the “diversity of views” about when conditions will warrant cutting the interest rate, central bank officials agreed that monetary policy easing would probably be gradual, given risks to the outlook and the slow path for returning inflation to target, according to the summary of deliberations.
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They considered a number of potential risks to the outlook for economic growth and inflation, including housing and immigration, according to summary of deliberations.
The central bankers discussed the risk that housing market activity could accelerate and further boost shelter prices and acknowledged that easing monetary policy could increase the likelihood of this risk materializing. They concluded that their focus on measures such as CPI-trim, which strips out extreme movements in price changes, allowed them to effectively look through mortgage interest costs while capturing other shelter prices such as rent that are more reflective of supply and demand in housing.
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They also agreed to keep a close eye on immigration in the coming quarters due to uncertainty around recent announcements by the federal government.
“The projection incorporated continued strong population growth in the first half of 2024 followed by much softer growth, in line with the federal government’s target for reducing the share of non-permanent residents,” the summary said. “But details of how these plans will be implemented had not been announced. Governing council recognized that there was some uncertainty about future population growth and agreed it would be important to update the population forecast each quarter.”
• Email: bshecter@nationalpost.com
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Shares in US tech giant Meta have sunk in US after-hours trading despite better-than-expected earnings.
The Facebook and Instagram owner said expenses would be higher this year as it spends heavily on artificial intelligence (AI).
Its shares fell more than 15% after it said it expected to spend billions of dollars more than it had previously predicted in 2024.
Meta has been updating its ad-buying products with AI tools to boost earnings growth.
It has also been introducing more AI features on its social media platforms such as chat assistants.
The firm said it now expected to spend between $35bn and $40bn, (£28bn-32bn) in 2024, up from an earlier prediction of $30-$37bn.
Its shares fell despite it beating expectations on its earnings.
First quarter revenue rose 27% to $36.46bn, while analysts had expected earnings of $36.16bn.
Sophie Lund-Yates, lead equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said its spending plans were “aggressive”.
She said Meta’s “substantial investment” in AI has helped it get people to spend time on its platforms, so advertisers are willing to spend more money “in a time when digital advertising uncertainty remains rife”.
More than 50 countries are due to have elections this year, she said, “which hugely increases uncertainty” and can spook advertisers.
She added that Meta’s “fortunes are probably also being bolstered by TikTok’s uncertain future in the US”.
Meta’s rival has said it will fight an “unconstitutional” law that could result in TikTok being sold or banned in the US.
President Biden has signed into law a bill which gives the social media platform’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, nine months to sell off the app or it will be blocked in the US.
Ms Lund-Yates said that “looking further ahead, the biggest risk [for Meta] remains regulatory”.
Last year, Meta was fined €1.2bn (£1bn) by Ireland’s data authorities for mishandling people’s data when transferring it between Europe and the US.
And in February of this year, Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg faced blistering criticism from US lawmakers and was pushed to apologise to families of victims of child sexual exploitation.
Ms Lund-Yates added that the firm has “more than enough resources to throw at legal challenges, but that doesn’t rule out the risks of ups and downs in market sentiment”.
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