The Rise and Fall of Twitter: Peter Zatko, the C-Suite, and a Who’s Afraid of Spam
Less than a week after Musk acquired the company, the C-suite seems to have almost been completely cleaned out through a mix of firings and resignations. Musk has also dissolved Twitter’s former board of directors.
This is a big story with a lot of fast- moving parts. It’s also a story that will likely stretch out over the next few months, maybe even longer. So we decided to create a guide for our readers that can be updated when things keep happening. We are like you.
A few days later, Twitter responded the way it always does: your argument is invalid, Twitter hasn’t breached its side of the deal, and so you can’t either.
Zatko’s disclosure says directly that Twitter lied to Musk about its spam and bot measurements, which could be fodder for Musk’s complaints about spambots, though Zatko’s support for those particular allegations feels fairly thin. They called the accusations a false narrative.
Peter “Mudge” Zatko was fired in early 2022 from his position as Twitter’s head of security. He filed a report in July saying thatTwitter has hidden negligent security practices, lied about its safety, and failed to estimate the number of bots on its platform. Zatko’s allegations are sure to have a big impact on the way people communicate with one another on the internet. Congress, for one, has already said it is investigating Zatko’s claims.
The subpoenas ahead of the trial have become a who’s who of the tech industry, including Dorsey, Larry Ellison, Marc Andreessen, Tesla, Keith Rabois, and many others. Dorsey was a surprise but seems likely to have plenty of pertinent information, given both his tenure as Twitter CEO and the fact that Dorsey reportedly pushed hard to convince Musk to buy the company in the first place.
Now, one way to free up cash is to fire a lot of people. The problem with doing that, though, is that you lose a bunch of the engineers who could build cool shit to make Twitter more attractive. This isn’t a major problem for Musk, as he can get new talent on the cheap if he has to.
How Well Does Musk Take Over Twitter? The Case of the Twitter CEO/Executor Melted Towards the Future of the Social Platform
We wouldn’t normally tell you it’s worth reading a 162-page legal filing that gets deep into the weeds of bot measurement procedures. But this case has been filled with abnormally spicy legal fighting, much of which was clearly written to be read by a wide audience. It is a good yarn.
The employees told Alex they were angry with the lack of a more detailed response. They’re concerned about the future of the social media platform, as well as the possibility of layoffs.
But even a free speech maximalist like Musk needs to convince shareholders that his buyout offer is in their financial self-interest. What are we doing here?
Jack said the policy didn’t make sense and he supported Musk’s takeover of the platform.
There was a belief that the poison pill provisions might not be enough to stop Musk. But he also assumed that Musk would just continue to troll the company through his tweets.
After taking over Twitter, Musk dissolved the company’s board and its C-Suite emptied out. As the sole board director and owner of the company, Musk is able to appoint the next CEO, as well as tell them what to do in the role.
The stock filing said that Musk is now the CEO and sole director of the social platform, cementing his influence over it, at a time when he is trying to make significant changes to how it operates. Musk is also the founder and CEO of several other companies.
It’s unclear whether VP of Operations Lindsey Iannucci, the other two members of Twitter’s top leadership team, will remain with the company. Twitter did not respond to a request for comment about the current employment status of Caldwell, Sullivan, Berland and Iannucci.
Nick Caldwell, general manager of core technology, has changed his Twitter bio to “former Twitter Exec,” and Jay Sullivan, general manager of consumer and revenue products, removed the company and his title from his Twitter bio. The New York Times also reported Tuesday that Chief Marketing Officer Leslie Berland had left the company; on Tuesday night she tweeted a single blue heart.
Calacanis earlier this week tweeted that he was in New York on behalf of Twitter meeting with “the marketing and advertising community.” He has also tweeted questions to Twitter users about the platform’s subscription and bookmark features.
The new owner said he will set up a new council that will include people with widely differing opinions to help determine the policies of the site. He said that the platform’s policies have not changed yet.
I didn’t think chaos would come so fast, but I admit: this rules. This is hard to own. Awoooou (wolf howl), Twitter is good again. We’re no longer locked in here with Elon Musk — Elon Musk has locked himself in here with us.
This does not solve the bigger problem of revenue. Advertising accounted for about 90 percent of the revenue last year. The data licensing stream was the main source of income for the company.
It doesn’t take a cut of the money that you send to people with tips on its head. It does take a cut of the revenue from Super Follows, a way to make your tweets a subscription service, but Twitter’s share is dwarfed by the fees taken by Apple for in-app purchases.
Well, no, because this is the internet, and there’s forum drama. The account with the blue checkmark and the display name “Nintendo of America” managed to put up a pic of Mario, but they didn’t have to verify their identity because they got a blue check mark. That might be enough of a cause of brand damage for an unwary user.
Musk doesn’t mind. When Tom Warren took a pic, he was replied, “The beauty of this is each account that gets verified paid $8.” Twitter keeps the money and suspends the account. It’s genius and I hope more folks do this. It’s free money for Twitter.” Musk replied with a bag of money, and a bullseye, as well as a smiling face and sunglasses.
I don’t think most advertisers would want to hire someone with that attitude towards impersonation, even during an economic downturn. The question to ask is whether users will stay in that environment, because it has gotten a new layer of fraudulent activity. Mark Cuban said that the influx of new users has made his mentions less than desirable. Cuban’s thoughts are one reason people stay on the platform — drive him off, and Twitter is less valuable.
The federal government requires full documentation when it comes to any foreseeable risks of a product or service affecting commerce. The changes to Twitter Blue rolled out less than two weeks after Musk bought Twitter. Do you think there’s much more to know about its risks? Sounds like Twitter’s lawyers are worried!
It is risky debt and B1 is on the lower end of junk rating spectrum. It seems that investor appetite for this debt is not as big as it was four months ago. And when Moody’s rated Twitter’s debt, it cited Twitter’s governance — i.e., Elon Musk — as a major driver of risk.
Even with this week’s sales, he still has over 400 million shares of the company through a trust he controls that are worth about $68 billion based on the average price he received for them this week. He’s likely to get even more options early next year after Tesla’s upcoming financial results are reported.
The fact that the stock price of Musk’s company has fallen to a low of $150 per share, which is less than a year ago, looms over this week’s entire episode. Musk recently dropped to number two on Forbes’s list of the world’s richest people.
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about that time when Elon Musk bought a McLaren F1 for $1 million and then immediately drove it into a ditch while trying to show off to Peter Thiel. According to TheContrarian, Musk said that he had read stories about people who made money buying sports cars and crashing them. I didn’t have any insurance because I knew it wouldn’t happen to me.
Man, look, after the debacle on Twitter Spaces last night, can we please stop pretending that this is anything but flailing? There is no insurance for him after he crashed the McLaren.
Musk has been offloading a bunch of his Tesla shares, which might mean he’s planning to buy or personally pay Twitter’s debt or might mean he’s getting margin called on some of his loans as the price of Tesla shares falls.
After violating his own rules by banning links that he thought were offensive, and putting his site at odds with the Washington Post’s Taylor Lorenz and his own supporters like Silicon Valley venture capitalistPaul Graham, Musk apologized and a promise was made.
With his decision-making under fire from people who had previously supported him, Musk might be prepared to put his toy in the hands of someone else.
That’s the question remaining to be answered this Monday evening, more than 12 hours after an unscientific poll posted by the Twitter CEO resulted in 57.5% of participants voting that he should step down as head of the beleaguered social media company.
The Musk Rules, as they’re sometimes called, can change depending on Musk’s time at the company and his own actions on his own account. He claimed that no major content decisions would happen without a moderation council, even though he promised previously that no major content decisions would happen without one.
The policy that took many users aback is the one that says that links to other social media sites will no longer be allowed.
The Chaotic Leader of Twitter, Donald Musk, and the Tesla CEO: The Impact of the Scaling Laws on the News Lobby and the Twitter Ecosystem
Three minutes later, Musk asked if it was time for him to quit as the head ofTwitter and promised to follow the results of the poll.
Over 17 million people voted in the informal referendum on his chaotic leadership of Twitter, which has seen mass layoffs, the replatforming of suspended accounts, the suspension of journalists and the reversal of policy changes in real time.
Replying to a tweet Sunday, in which MIT artificial intelligence researcher Lex Fridman said he would take the CEO job, Musk hinted he hasn’t been completely happy with his new gig.
Oppenheimer & Co. downgraded its rating on Tesla, where Musk is the CEO, solely because of risks posed by the billionaire’s ownership and management of Twitter.
Calacanis was the one who posed the question about whether he, Sacks, or Calacanis should become Twitter’s next CEO.
Last week, the ban of CNN’s Donie O’ Sullivan by Twitter was cited as the catalyst for the downgrade.
CNN reported that Musk gave journalists the option to return to TWoP if they deleted the false reports about him.
Rusch, the Oppenheimer analyst, said the “inconsistent standards application” for Twitter users has helped create a “broad public backlash” against Musk that will in turn hurt Tesla.
Rusch wrote that they believe that banning journalists without clear communication is too much for a majority of consumers to continue supporting Mr. Musk.
The shareholder in both companies said last weekend that he wants Musk to be the CEO ofTwitter during the first quarter of 2023.
The Evil Billionaire Attack: A New Analog of the “Illusions” of the Musk White House Addressing Trump’s Tweet on Monday
A version of this article first appeared in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter. Sign up for the daily digest chronicling the evolving media landscape here.
Given Musk’s propensity for tweeting, and his rapid decisions after previous polls, many expected he would have addressed the elephant in the room by now. But he has not. In fact, Musk was quiet most of Monday and did not have a single shout-out on his account.
In the field of information security, there’s a kind of vulnerability called the “evil maid attack,” in which an untrusted party can gain physical access to important hardware such as a laptop, if you leave it unattended. We have here a new analog, just as capable of wrecking systems and leaking data. Call it the “evil billionaire attack” if you’d like. When the moment arrives, you won’t have the money to make a difference, that’s the weapon. The call is coming from inside the house.
The Technicolor of the Blogging Engine and its Implications for the Future of the Internet and the Next-Generation Web
The reason this strategy works is that most ideas of any consequence are owned by people with more money than you, and then whenever possible they string them together into a network with the specific intent of making the gravity inescapable. Founders and investors and excitable technology writers like myself frequently use the term “platform” to describe technical systems with granular components that can be used to compose new functionality, and the power sources propelling the technology industry find platforms particularly appealing when the bits can be monetized each time they are used.
The earlyblogging engine that grew into the more complex general-purpose content management software is considered to be a case in point. It now powers 40% of the web, which is considered to be associated with it. A huge economy has sprung up around it: companies that develop websites, developers who work for those companies, indie developers who work for themselves, many of them writing plugins which can be unlocked or extended with licensing fees. This is all possible because the core is open source and encourages the same of its ecosystem. WordPress has been around for a long time and its straightforward RSS feeds decisively lost out to Twitter’s social features, so in 2022 there is a reasonable argument that it is a bit long in the tooth. But we must now understand it to be a bigger technical success than Twitter, simply because it is not at risk.
The problem is fought on the deepest level possible by theBlockchains. It would be vastly more difficult, or perhaps impossible, for Musk to kill off a blockchain so long as a handful of users objected enough to continue operating independent nodes. The risk of losing access is infinitesmal, because it’s not a single computer. Losing information due to a hostile party isn’t one of the different problems this brings. For example, when the Hic et Nunc marketplace for NFTs went under in late 2021, another version relaunched, putting a new wrapper around the same content. The shared resources of the ledger act as a force that causes interoperability.
Major advertisers have left the platform, just as Musk has suggested that the company could be on the verge of insolvency. The site’s analysts think that Musk could be floating the idea of bankruptcy as a cover for his cost-cutting measures.
The value of the world’s richest person: The tesla stock crisis and the valuation of an iconic u-boson
Morgan Stanley still believes the company is somewhat undervalued as a result of the big recent sell-offs, citing its head start over the electric car competition, and potential tax advantages as a result of the Inflation Reduction Act passed earlier this year.
The losses, however, have further put a dent in the fortunes of one of the world’s richest people. At the start of the year, Musk was worth $21 billion and now he is worth $132 billion. He lost his title two weeks ago as the world’s richest person to Bernard Arnault.
The analyst who cut his price target on the stock last Friday said there are cracks in the demand in China and in the US for the Model 3. “The price cuts that Tesla enacted was the straw that broke the camel’s back on the stock.”
“I think there is going to be some macro drama that’s higher than people currently think,” he said, according to Reuters, adding that homes and cars will get “disproportionately impacted” by economic conditions.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/29/business/tesla-stock/index.html
The Rise and Fall of Tesla: The Fate of the Electric Car Company and the History of the Inclusive Decay of the Tesla Company
Gene Munster is aTesla fan and he said that the electric car company got ahead of itself. “I still believe this can be a much bigger company. I am pretty sure it will see those kinds of numbers again. It might take a long time to get there.
The stock’s climb to dizzying heights – rising 743% in 2020 alone – was driven by Musk’s reputation as a genius who would disrupt the massive global auto industry.
With Ford and Rivian both selling electric pickup models, the production ramp-up of it next year will put it years ahead of the competition. It could be a possible competitor to the electric pickup offerings from General GM.
Gordon Johnson, one of the biggest critics ofTesla, said that the CEO has a pathological problem with the truth. “When people say he’s a genius and innovator, it’s based on all his promises he never lives up to.”
After it starts being priced like other cars rather than on its promises, the shares will have a steep fall. He said that for Tesla to hit its growth targets it needs to be building new plants almost every year, but that new factories in Germany and Texas that opened in spring are still not operating at full capacity. And he said that its plant in China has had to scale back production due to weak sales in the market in the face of the Covid restrictions.
He said that the demand in the US had collapsed. You waited two or three months ago. Now you can get one immediately. They’re going to build more cars than they sell for a third straight quarter. The definition of excess capacity is what it is.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/29/business/tesla-stock/index.html
Where are the big guns? Tesla, Ford, and GM: Where are we going? What can investors really want to see from Musk?
Tesla is still by far the largest EV maker worldwide, although that title is being challenged in some key markets, by Volkswagen in Europe and by BYD in China. Ford and GM are some of the established automakers that are vying for customers.
Musk is saying he is finished selling stock, but that is a lie. Investors want to see him walk the walk and not just talk the talk,” said Ives.