Elon blocked me on Twitter. Then he suspended me for reporting on it. Between all that,
@kateconger
and I decided to write a book on him, his takeover, and everything that happened.
CHARACTER LIMIT comes out in September. You can pre-order it now:
Elon once tried to get me to write a story that a Thai-based British man, who had criticized him, was a โchild rapistโ and took a 12 year old bride based on information someone sent him. That someone ended up being a conman pretending to be a private investigator.
Musk is talking about "his obsession with truth" on stage right now. Four years ago, he tried to get me to write that a British cave rescuer in Thailand was a "child rapist" because of false information fed to him by a fake private investigator.
My favorite corporate Juneteenth moment is when Elon Musk told Tesla and SpaceX workers that Juneteenth was considered a US holiday, then later clarified that employees who wanted to observe it would have to take a paid time off day.
Elon Musk went to the Texas-Mexico border to do a livestream about immigration. The video had a few technical difficulties and then eventually froze.
A few minutes ago, Musk sent a three word company-wide email: "Please fix this."
Elon Musk has said he's about context on tweets, so here's context for these shirts: They came from Twitter's Black employee resource group and were popularized by
@jack
, who wore a version around to conferences to support the group (and was sometimes ridiculed for it).
The Coinbase CEO wrote a long thread discussing how their super bowl commercial came about and suggesting there are lessons in being non-traditional and not listening to ad agencies. But then he gets called out lol.
Elon Musk has been directing subordinates to comb through Twitter's Slack and make lists of people making fun of him or his plans for firing. They've also been monitoring employee's tweets. Latest w/
@kateconger
and
@MikeIsaac
)
Getting the whole gang together:
Tim Apple
Jeff Amazon
Elon Tesla
Mark Facebook
Jack Twitter
Sundar Google
Larry Oracle
Mark Salesforce
Daruber
Satya Soft
Reed Flix
talking to some Twitter employees and they say that knowing what device an account tweets from can be a strong signal in helping someone determine a real person from a bot or other automation
This is a blueprint for repressive governments everywhere. If Twitter doesn't censor the content you want, simply threaten to cut off the service. Its owner just put it in writing.
With X CEO Linda Yaccarino sitting in the room, Elon Musk just told advertisers who have pulled out of X โ including Disney CEO Bob Iger โ to go fuck themselves.
Musk can make covid jokes now, but it should always be remembered that he doubted the pandemicโs seriousness and spread misinformation during the crucial early months, all while forcing his employees to come into work during it. Poking fun at yourself doesnโt make that go away.
@jack
.
@jack
had been to Ferguson, following the killing of Michael Brown, in his home state of Missouri.
The
#StayWoke
messaging was twofold: 1) a call for awareness to the disproportionate police violence against Black people and 2) support for Black employees and Black Twitter
Not only are Facebook's services and apps down for the public, its internal tools and communications platforms, including Workplace, are out as well. No one can do any work. Several people I've talked to said this is the equivalent of a "snow day" at the company.
X, the company formerly known as Twitter, told employees in an internal note today that the company is worth $19 billion, down from the $44 billion Elon Musk paid for it a year ago.
The NYT tax story is really a breakthrough in reporting and presentation. It's thorough and dense for those looking to parse details, but there's one punchline detail that folks will remember for a long time: $750.
@jack
But instead, for Musk and his advisers, it's an opportunity to make some political point. Which, sure, he owns Twitter now.
But he should consider the communities he's ridiculing here that have made Twitter, the company and the social network, what it is today.
The top employee voted question at today's internal Facebook Q&A for Mark Zuckerberg:
"What is our next big product, which does not imitate already existing products on the market?"
As protestors stormed the Capitol, Facebook employees took to their internal workplace message board to express their fears and ask that Trump be removed from the platform. In response, management shut down threads and prevented them from commenting.
Six former Twitter execs and longtime employees sued Twitter and Elon Musk in US district court in Delaware on Tues, alleging they violated severance agreements. The lawsuit seems to corroborate much of our & others' reporting about the co not paying bills
Twitter, under
@Jack
, was proud of that messaging. They provided the t-shirts as free merch to give away at
tech conferences. You could purchase the shirts as well.
@jack
Of course, Musk could ask Dorsey about the shirts, the history of the phrase at Twitter, Blackbirds, and the Black Twitter community.
Dorsey is an investor in Musk and has called him the "singular solution I trust" to keep Twitter alive.
Rep Jayapal: "Do you copy your competitors?"
Zuckerberg: "We've certainly adopted features..."
A Facebook employee who just texted me: "Weโre literally copying TikTok right now."
A few days ago when Elon Musk's emails to Tesla and SpaceX about restricting work from home were reported, some smart folks predicted it'd be the pretense for a mass layoff. Lo and behold:
Kinda stunned at the lack of reaction from traditional US print and tv press about our story. It details an employee with direct allegations of Facebook turning a blind eye toward electoral and political disruption around the world, and it's been crickets.
lmao... the White House/Melania Trump Be Best pamphlet about your kids being online is almost the exact same thing that the FTC published in Jan. 2014:
2014:
2018:
Elon Musk sent me an email last week. In it, he accused a British cave rescuer of being "a child rapist" who took a "12-year-old bride." He didn't provide any evidence of those claims.
He also called me a "fucking asshole."
And for even further context, let's remember a book written by his adviser David Sacks called the Diversity Myth, which he later apologized for. The book called some date rapes "belated regret" and criticized diversity pushes on college campuses.
Twitter is facing 1,986 demands for arbitration from former employees, according to a letter posted by a law firm representing some of those workers.
97% of those demands include claims for breach of contract.
762 demands also allege discrimination.
A Facebook content moderator contracted through Accenture in Austin quit this morning with a blistering internal note. Iโve typed it out in full so people can read it for themselves.
Seems misleading to conflate a "view" on a video with someone viewing a tweet. Musk is basically saying that if you just scroll by a tweet and barely glance at it, that counts as a view in that counter on the far right.
For context, YouTube counts a video view after a user has
On his now frozen video, Musk said he was worried there would be so many viewers that it would crash the stream. This is now a common refrain from him.
Previously on a troubled stream with Ron DeSantis, Musk and his team claimed tech difficulties were due to "melting servers."
Elon Musk sent an email earlier tonight to Twitter employees encouraging them to subscribe to creators on the platform and then expense those costs back to the company.
Facebook employees are furious and unloaded on Mark Zuckerberg during an all-hands meeting yesterday over his handling of QAnon and a Kenosha militia page that remained online after a shooting that killed two people. Here's my dispatch from inside:
Musk's Twitter reduced maternity leave down to 2 weeks for employees in some states. The company changed the policy recently after employees became outraged and some quit.
This is an apartment building in Valletta, the capital of Malta. It houses six flats. One of those is the registered residence of one of the richest men in the world: Peter Thiel.
What is he doing in Malta? Applying for citizenship.
This is probably one of the biggest news moments of the year and Twitter has become such a low trust environment. No idea what is actually credible. The โfor youโ page is just accounts who bought verified checkmarks talking out of their asses about the war.
I grew up on stories of my mom's escape from Vietnam. My grandparents sewed gold into the lining of their kids clothes and then ran to get on one of the last refugee ships out. The pictures out of Afghanistan are devastating for her. She said it looks worse than Saigon.
This also comes after Twitter/X CEO Linda Yaccarino said this on stage yesterday: "Who wouldn't want Elon Musk sitting by their side running product?"
(Some in the crowd laughed after her statement.)
Elon Musk's Twitter is:
-No longer paying rent at any of its offices
-Reconsidering whether to pay employees severance
-Not working with lawyer Alex Spiro
-Getting legal help from SpaceX
Latest w/
@MikeIsaac
,
@kateconger
,
@nytmike
Guy is wearing a sweatshirt saying โASK ME ABOUT BITCOIN.โ
I ask him about bitcoin.
He responds, โI smoke too much weed to give financial advice.โ
I got owned.
Twitter spokesperson on why Jacob Wohl's account was suspended: "The account was suspended for multiple violations of the Twitter Rules, specifically creating and operating fake accounts."
Then after getting called out he added a 12th tweet to his thread, 12 hours after his previous tweet, to credit the โcreative firmโ though not by name. Beautiful.
After we published a story on an internal report detailing Facebook's failures in preventing the Stop the Steal movement, the company moved to prevent employees from accessing the report.
So we published the full text for all to read.
Just spoke with
@JxckSweeney
who runs the now suspended
@elonjet
account that tracked Elon Musk's private jet using public flight data. He says he woke up this morning to find the account suspended. No reason was given.
So to get this straight: Earth's richest person tries international diplomacy on microblogging platform and then gets dunked on by various world leaders on said platform, which he eventually may be forced to buy for $44 billion.
No notes. 10/10.