The crawl space of controversy born from the acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk does not seem to subside, with the emergence of various positions, both from the outside and from the inside of the microblog of the blue canary.
The telenovela linked to the acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, continues with new positions taken by the EFF, the legal manager of the platform, the employees and, even, the former president Trump: in the meantime , the acquisition procedures go on, and the definition of “penalties” in the event of non-signing has been reached.
In the past few hours, further details have emerged relating to the acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk, thanks to a document filed with the supervisory authority SEC, which shows, first of all, that the two parties, Musk and the social network, they will be forced to pay $ 1 billion in penalties if the acquisition is not completed. In particular, the commission will be paid if Musk does not actually pool the funds to buy the platform, for $ 44 billion, or if the latter advises shareholders to vote against Musk’s proposal or decides to accept competing proposals. In addition, the employee equity program will end with the acquisition: until then the bonuses linked to share ownership will accrue but, afterwards, they will be canceled and, upon reaching their maturity, the cash balance will be paid.
As is known, Trump’s Twitter account was suspended after the former president’s support for the assault on the US Capitol and, ipso facto, the rich exponent of the ultra-conservative front had to create a separate social network, Truth. Social which, on the App Store, is achieving great success in terms of installations, so much so that Musk explained how this social network exists precisely because of the censorship of Twitter’s free speech. Trump, however, to Fox News., While having called Musk a good man who will certainly introduce improvements on the microblog, he explained that he will not return to Twitter and that he will remain on Truth.
More than Trump’s eventual return to Twitter, Musk’s problems seem to come from other fronts. In the past few hours, the conservative collective Project Veritas has posted on YouTube the audio (judged extrapolated and manipulated by the CMO of Twitter, Leslie Berland) of the first meeting of the social with employees since the acquisition of Musk.
The registration shows the concerns of employees, who asked if there was a freeze on hiring (with no response), and the impact of the buyer on the direction of the platform once it was made private. CEO Parag Agrawal, who has been in the saddle for 4 months, said the company will continue to behave as usual until the deal is finalized, possibly within 6 months, and that some things may change afterwards. Meanwhile, a two-way dialogue will start with Musk, in an attempt to explain to him why some moves have been made regarding moderation, but also to set up a collaboration that incorporates Musk’s aspirations and ambitions. Obviously, the aim will be for the person concerned to speak directly with the employees “as soon as possible”.
The Twitter legal team is also in turmoil. In the meeting of Twitter lawyers held by the manager Vijaya Gadde, the latter was moved by commenting on the future of Twitter, wondering how it will be managed by the richest man on the planet who, on the other hand, commenting on his statements during the podcaster broadcast Saagar Enjeti, called her the best censorship activist, having determined both Trump’s ban and the suspension of the New York Post account for publishing the emails of Biden’s son, possibly obtained through hacking, spreading conspiracy theories.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation also said it was concerned about the acquisition of Musk. According to the EFF it would be dangerous to want to authenticate all users of the social network, because it is used only by real people, because being able to use a pseudonym protects anonymity and avoids retaliation in the criticism of power. Furthermore, the freedom of speech advocated by Musk could damage some categories, protected by the fact that the social network prohibits the publication of specific content. Finally, but here Musk agreed, the EFF advised to implement end-to-end encryption on the platform’s private messaging, which can now be freely read by employees and delivered in clear text to the authorities.