“I hope he calls it ‘Trumpet’ and then we can send out ‘notes’ to each other!”
— Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA), quoted by CNN, texting former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in January 2020 about his hope the former president would create a competitor to Twitter.
The European Union has warned Elon Musk that Twitter must comply with the EU’s new digital rules on moderating illegal and harmful content under his ownership, or risk hefty fines or even a ban, the Financial Times reports.
New York Times: Buying Twitter, Elon Musk will face reality of his free-speech talk.
“China’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday there was no basis to speculation that Beijing could try to use leverage over electric car maker Tesla in order to influence content on U.S. social media site Twitter,” Reuters reports.
“Interesting question. Did the Chinese government just gain a bit of leverage over the town square?”
— Jeff Bezos, on Twitter.
“Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated. I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans. Twitter has tremendous potential I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it.”
— Elon Musk, on acquiring Twitter.
Former President Donald Trump told Fox News that he will not return to Twitter, even as Elon Musk purchases the social media company and reinstates his account, instead using his own Truth Social as the sole platform for his voice.
Said Trump: “I am not going on Twitter, I am going to stay on Truth. I hope Elon buys Twitter because he’ll make improvements to it and he is a good man, but I am going to be staying on Truth.”
Trump said he will start using his own social network within the next week.
Twitter’s board has accepted an offer from billionaire Elon Musk to buy the social media company for $44 billion and take it private, CNBC reports.
“Assuming the deal closes and Musk takes ownership of Twitter, the company will be controlled by the world’s richest person and someone who’s been a heavy critic of the platform while using it in legally contentious ways, mostly through sensitive posts about his car manufacturer, Tesla.”
Axios: “This is an earthquake in global media and politics, where Twitter hosts the discourse. It’s sure to be criticized by those who disagree with Musk’s laissez-faire views on content moderation and cheered by those who believe Twitter has been too heavy-handed with its block button.”
Vanity Fair: Trump’s Truth Social appears officially fucked.
“Twitter is poised to agree a sale to Elon Musk for around $43 billion in cash, the price the chief executive of Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) has called his ‘best and final’ offer for the social media company,” Reuters reports.
“Twitter is re-examining Elon Musk’s $43 billion takeover offer after the billionaire lined up financing for the bid, in a sign the social-media company could be more receptive to a deal,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Twitter had been expected to rebuff the offer, which Mr. Musk made earlier this month without saying how he would pay for it. But after he disclosed last week that he now has $46.5 billion in financing, Twitter is taking a fresh look at the offer and is more likely than before to seek to negotiate, people familiar with the matter said. The situation is fast-moving and it is still far from guaranteed Twitter will do so.”
“The Kremlin is waging a new influence campaign: persuading Russians to quit Western social-media platforms,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“As part of an expansive effort to control the narrative about its invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin is pushing Russians to embrace homegrown alternatives instead. Russian authorities have put up firewalls around several Western social-media platforms and are threatening more. Now they have to convince Russians used to the freedoms of YouTube and Instagram that censored domestic social networks can deliver moneymaking opportunities and equally large audiences. And that they aren’t just cheap knockoffs.”
“The Biden administration announced Monday it is barring anti-satellite missile testing by the United States, a move that White House officials say is meant to underscore its hopes of establishing new norms for military action in space,” the AP reports.
“The U.S. has sharply criticized Russia and China for conducting anti-satellite missile tests, although it also used an interceptor missile fired from a U.S. Navy warship more than 14 years ago to destroy a malfunctioning spy satellite.”
Gizmodo: “As part of an ongoing project to make these once-confidential records accessible to the general public, Gizmodo is today—for the first time—publishing 28 of the documents previously exclusively shared with Congress and the media. We have undertaken this project to help better inform the public about Facebook’s role in a wide range of controversies, as well as to provide researchers with access to materials that we hope will advance general knowledge of social media’s role in modern history’s most troubling crises.”
“Less than two weeks after Donald Trump’s mob attacked the Capitol, the results of a poll commissioned by Facebook itself showed what already felt anecdotally true to many: That a majority of Americans believed Facebook at least partly responsible for the events of Jan. 6.”
“The documents will reveal to you, for instance, an internal analysis of the many groups that Facebook knew to be prolific sources of both voter suppression efforts and hate speech targeting its most marginalized users. The records show the company was privately aware of the growing fears among users of being exposed to election-related falsehoods. The papers show that Meta’s own data pinpointed the account of then-President Trump as being principally responsible for a surge in reports concerning violations of its violence and incitement rules.”
Ronan Farrow: “The inside story of the world’s most notorious commercial spyware and the big tech companies waging war against it.”
“Twitter on Friday threw a roadblock in front of Elon Musk’s hostile takeover bid, adopting a plan known as a ‘poison pill’ that would make it much more expensive and complicated for the Tesla CEO to take control of the social media network,” the Washington Post reports.
“The plan seeks to thwart Musk from growing his stake in Twitter by giving other shareholders the option to buy more shares in the company at a discounted price. It would effectively flood the market with new shares that Musk would have to buy at a higher price to acquire the company, making a takeover potentially prohibitively expensive.”
“The FBI on Thursday blamed hackers associated with the North Korean government for stealing more than $600 million in cryptocurrency last month from a video gaming company — the latest in a string of audacious cyber heists tied to Pyongyang,” CNN reports.
“Twitter is weighing a poison pill that would prevent Elon Musk from increasing his stake in the company significantly,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
Bloomberg: “Musk said he has a Plan B if Twitter rejects his offer, without offering more details.”
“Just days after a verified account for Fox News appeared on former President Trump’s social media app, Truth Social, a Fox News spokesperson says the network has nothing to do with the account,” Axios reports.
“Investors clearly would have viewed Fox News’ participation as a boon for the struggling app.”
Elon Musk offered to buy Twitter for $54.20 a share in cash, or about $43 billion, Axios reports.
Said Musk: “I am not playing the back-and-forth game. I have moved straight to the end. It’s a high price and your shareholders will love it.”
He added: “If the deal doesn’t work, given that I don’t have confidence in management nor do I believe I can drive the necessary change in the public market, I would need to reconsider my position as a shareholder.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.