Elon Musk’s short-lived push to buy Twitter has made him a lot of enemies — but it’s delivering exactly what a certain set of Republican influencers want. Right-wing figures like Steve Bannon and Donald Trump Jr. have already hailed Musk’s decision to back out of the deal. For them, the goal is no longer to control Twitter but to embarrass it.
“Maybe Elon never intended to buy Twitter after all,” Charlie Kirk, podcaster and CEO of Turning Point USA, said in a tweet on Friday. “Maybe he just wanted to expose it.”
In a Sunday Gettr post, former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon said that Twitter has repeatedly lied “about the scale, scope, depth, source and ubiquity of BOTs versus actual human users.” He continued, “Twitter is not a real company–it’s an ‘information warfare apparatus.’”
Right-wing pundits had initially applauded the idea of a Musk-owned Twitter on the assumption that the Tesla CEO would reverse the ban on former President Donald Trump and other conservatives — an impression encouraged by Musk’s emphasis on restoring free speech. But with Musk now going to court with Twitter to escape from the deal, those pundits’ attention has turned to any embarrassing secrets that might be turned up in the trial’s discovery proceedings.
Litigating the suit would involve significant discovery, making public internal company information to a suite of hungry right-wing pundits prepared to spin it as confirmation that Twitter is biased against conservatives. Musk has already proved he’s willing to engage with those figures, and the alliance could benefit them both in the long run.
Previous tech lawsuits have unveiled damaging information on platforms in the past. As part of a 2018 UK Parliament investigation into Facebook, lawmakers received and published sealed court documents showing that CEO Mark Zuckerberg personally approved a decision to cut Vine, the now-defunct video app, from the platform’s API shortly after it was acquired by Twitter.
Musk has already thrown his weight behind the right’s exposé narrative, tweeting out a meme on Monday that said, “They said I couldn’t buy Twitter. Then they wouldn’t disclose bot info … Now they have to disclose bot info in court.” The meme ends with an image of Musk, head bent backward, hysterically laughing.
Central to Musk’s argument to cancel the deal is the claim that Twitter misrepresented the number of bots on the platform. Fake users impact the amount of money the company could make off ad revenue, therefore making it a less lucrative purchase for Musk. Since these numbers were not disclosed at the time the deal was struck, Musk believes it is within his right to pull out.
It’s a defense Musk began laying the groundwork for not long after he first proposed to take over Twitter — and one that’s been enthusiastically embraced by the right. “So basically Twitter has a huge amount of spam accounts —way more than they let on — and has gotten busted for it!!!” Donald Trump Jr. said in a Friday tweet.
While Musk has made political donations to Republicans in the past, his relationship with the right has only grown stronger following his decision to buy Twitter. During a May Financial Times conference, Musk called Twitter’s ban of Trump a “morally bad decision” and said that he would allow the former president to rejoin the platform once he controlled it.
Even if information from the trial doesn’t implicitly prove that Twitter censors conservatives, it’s likely that the right will frame it as such. Not only would it hurt Twitter but also it could encourage users to jump to budding right-leaning Twitter clones like Parler, Truth Social, and Gettr.
“The lasting result of the failed acquisition will be permanent, and Musk deserves credit for further exposing the incurable, rotting, politically discriminatory culture inside the Blue Bird,” Gettr CEO Jason Miller said in a statement on Friday.
CALGARY – TC Energy Corp. has lowered the estimated cost of its Southeast Gateway pipeline project in Mexico.
It says it now expects the project to cost between US$3.9 billion and US$4.1 billion compared with its original estimate of US$4.5 billion.
The change came as the company reported a third-quarter profit attributable to common shareholders of C$1.46 billion or $1.40 per share compared with a loss of C$197 million or 19 cents per share in the same quarter last year.
Revenue for the quarter ended Sept. 30 totalled C$4.08 billion, up from C$3.94 billion in the third quarter of 2023.
TC Energy says its comparable earnings for its latest quarter amounted to C$1.03 per share compared with C$1.00 per share a year earlier.
The average analyst estimate had been for a profit of 95 cents per share, according to LSEG Data & Analytics.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
BCE Inc. reported a loss in its latest quarter as it recorded $2.11 billion in asset impairment charges, mainly related to Bell Media’s TV and radio properties.
The company says its net loss attributable to common shareholders amounted to $1.24 billion or $1.36 per share for the quarter ended Sept. 30 compared with a profit of $640 million or 70 cents per share a year earlier.
On an adjusted basis, BCE says it earned 75 cents per share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of 81 cents per share in the same quarter last year.
“Bell’s results for the third quarter demonstrate that we are disciplined in our pursuit of profitable growth in an intensely competitive environment,” BCE chief executive Mirko Bibic said in a statement.
“Our focus this quarter, and throughout 2024, has been to attract higher-margin subscribers and reduce costs to help offset short-term revenue impacts from sustained competitive pricing pressures, slow economic growth and a media advertising market that is in transition.”
Operating revenue for the quarter totalled $5.97 billion, down from $6.08 billion in its third quarter of 2023.
BCE also said it now expects its revenue for 2024 to fall about 1.5 per cent compared with earlier guidance for an increase of zero to four per cent.
The company says the change comes as it faces lower-than-anticipated wireless product revenue and sustained pressure on wireless prices.
BCE added 33,111 net postpaid mobile phone subscribers, down 76.8 per cent from the same period last year, which was the company’s second-best performance on the metric since 2010.
It says the drop was driven by higher customer churn — a measure of subscribers who cancelled their service — amid greater competitive activity and promotional offer intensity. BCE’s monthly churn rate for the category was 1.28 per cent, up from 1.1 per cent during its previous third quarter.
The company also saw 11.6 per cent fewer gross subscriber activations “due to more targeted promotional offers and mobile device discounting compared to last year.”
Bell’s wireless mobile phone average revenue per user was $58.26, down 3.4 per cent from $60.28 in the third quarter of the prior year.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
TORONTO – Canada Goose Holdings Inc. trimmed its financial guidance as it reported its second-quarter revenue fell compared with a year ago.
The luxury clothing company says revenue for the quarter ended Sept. 29 totalled $267.8 million, down from $281.1 million in the same quarter last year.
Net income attributable to shareholders amounted to $5.4 million or six cents per diluted share, up from $3.9 million or four cents per diluted share a year earlier.
On an adjusted basis, Canada Goose says it earned five cents per diluted share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of 16 cents per diluted share a year earlier.
In its outlook, Canada Goose says it now expects total revenue for its full financial year to show a low-single-digit percentage decrease to low-single-digit percentage increase compared with earlier guidance for a low-single-digit increase.
It also says it now expects its adjusted net income per diluted share to show a mid-single-digit percentage increase compared with earlier guidance for a percentage increase in the mid-teens.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
