Monthly Archives: September 2022

This illustration photo taken on August 5, 2022 shows a cellphone displaying a photo of Elon Musk placed on a computer monitor filled with Twitter logos in Washington, DC.

Samuel Corum | AFP | Getty Images

A Delaware court denied Elon Musk's request to delay the trial over his attempt to abandon a $44 billion deal to buy Twitter, according to a new filing released Wednesday.

But the billionaire Tesla CEO will be allowed to add claims from a Twitter whistleblower to his countersuit, Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick ruled.

The trial is expected to begin Oct. 17, earlier than the mid-November date Musk's team requested in its latest push.

"I previously rejected Defendants' arguments in response to Twitter's motion to expedite, making clear that the longer the delay until trial, the greater the risk of irreparable harm to Twitter," McCormick wrote. "I am convinced that even four weeks' delay would risk further harm to Twitter too great to justify."

Still, McCormick said Musk's request to amend his counterclaim clears the relatively "low bar" of the court's rules for doing so. Musk's lawyers asked to add claims related to the whistleblower complaint recently made public by Twitter's former head of security, Peiter "Mudge" Zatko. Musk's team argued the complaint, which detailed what Zatko alleged were egregious security failings by the company, would show Twitter breached its terms of the merger agreement if true.

Shortly after Zatko's allegations became public, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal said in a memo to employees first reported by CNN that while they were still reviewing the complaint, it "is a false narrative that is riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies, and presented without important context."

Musk originally said he wants to exit the deal because he's received insufficient reassurance from Twitter about the percentage of its monetizable users that are actually spam accounts.

McCormick said Musk's team would be entitled to only "incremental discovery" based on the new allegations, including "targeted document discovery and minimal additional experts and fact witnesses."

"We are hopeful that winning the motion to amend takes us one step closer to the truth coming out in that courtroom," Musk lawyer Alex Spiro of Quinn Emanuel said in a statement.

"We look forward to presenting our case in Court beginning on October 17th and intend to close the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon with Mr. Musk," a Twitter spokesperson said in a statement.

WATCH: A timeline of the Elon Musk-Twitter takeover saga

Link:

Delaware court denies Musk request to delay Twitter trial but approves request to add whistleblower claims - CNBC

Elon Musk took a swipe at billionaire rival Jeff Bezos over Amazons much-anticipated debut of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, declaring author J.R.R. Tolkien was turning in his grave.

Almost every male character so far is a coward, a jerk or both, the Tesla CEO tweeted to his 105 million followers on Monday.

Only Galadriel is brave, smart and nice, Musk added, referring to the elven princess played by actress Morfydd Clark, the younger version of the character made famous by Cate Blanchett.

The first two episodes premiered on Amazon Prime Video on Friday and drew 25 million viewers worldwide, leading Bezos to tout the massive debut.

Some 1.8 million US households tuned in to the premiere of the first episode within the first three days of its rollout while another 1.3 million watched the second episode, making it the highest debut of any show on Amazon Prime, according to the analytics firm Samba TV.

Go Middle-earth! Bezos wrote in a tweet hailing the large viewership.

Last week, Bezos made a surprise appearance at the global premiere of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power in London.

Almost every male character so far is a coward, a jerk or both. Only Galadriel is brave, smart and nice.

The 58-year-old Bezos arrived on the red carpet arm in arm with his girlfriend, Lauren Sanchez.

His attendance at the showing of the first two episodes was seen as a signal of how invested Amazon, which reportedly spent some $1 billion producing the series, is in its success.

The Seattle-based e-commerce giant has also forayed into streaming with its Amazon Prime Video offering. The Rings of Power rollout pits Amazon against the likes of Netflix and HBO.

Musk is known to devour science fiction and fantasy books, including Tolkiens seminal series.

In 2009, he told The New Yorker that when he was a young boy growing up in South Africa, he would read books to combat loneliness.

The heroes of the books I read, The Lord of the Rings and the Foundation series, always felt a duty to save the world,Musk said.

Musk and Bezos have a history of locking horns. The two men are in fierce competition to grab market share in the emerging space tourism and exploration industry.

Last year, NASA picked Musks outfit, SpaceX, to build a lunar lander system to transport astronauts to the moon prompting the companys main competitor, Bezos Blue Origin, to file a lawsuit.

Blue Origin is also aiming to develop its own satellite internet service that will compete with SpaceXs Starlink which led Musk to accuse Bezos of being a copycat.

Bezos space company has also tried to stop SpaceX from building a second-generation Starlink satellite network.

Last year, when Musk surpassed Bezos as the worlds richest person, he mockingly declared that he would send the Amazon founder a silver medal.

Musk is currently the worlds richest person with a net worth of $219 billion. Bezos is the second-richest with a fortune valued by Forbes at $171 billion.

Continue reading here:

Elon Musk pans Amazon's 'Lord of the Rings,' escalating feud with Jeff Bezos - New York Post

Elon Musk is currently the most influential CEO in the world with colossal responsibilities.

He is involved in four companies that each have the ambition to disrupt and dominate their industry: Tesla (TSLA) , SpaceX, The Boring Company and Neuralink. The promises made by his companies are enormous.

Within the next two months, EV maker Tesla has promised to roll out to at least 100,000 people the latest update of Full Self-Driving (FSD), its driver assistance system, which has advanced features and is supposed to bring closer its vehicles to autonomy.

The automaker also has the second edition of its Artificial intelligence day on Sept. 30. Musk is to present a functional humanoid robot there, which is scheduled to be marketed beginning in 2023.

Neuralink, which designs and installs brain-machine interfaces,will provide an update on its work on Oct. 31. The objective of its technology is to strengthen cognitive abilities by interacting directly a person's brain. The billionaire and Neuralink tested their chip on a pig called Gertrude onAug. 28, 2020.

For Musk, Neuralink will soon make it possible to save memories, and potentially to download them into another body or into a robot. Its technology, the company said, should also provide a better understanding of neurological diseases.

But the firm has fallen behind the competition. Synchron, which is developing its own brain-machine interface technology, obtained regulatory approvals from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2021 to test its chip on humans.

In addition, Musk is also in a legal battle with Twitter (TWTR) after he abruptly withdrew its $44 billion bid made on April 14 to acquire the microblogging website. The two parties are currently fighting each other through subpoenas. Twitter wants the court to force Musk to keep his original pledge. Musk says the platform lies about the number of fake accounts, or spam bots, populating the social network. A quick five-day trial is scheduled for October 17 if the two sides do not reach an agreement by then.

As if all this were not enough Musk has just announced that he now has a new task to accomplish: he will open a show by comedian Chris Rock, who has been in the news for several months after the Slapgate scandal.

Scroll to Continue

Last March during the Oscars, actor Will Smith, who would later be crowned best actor for his role as the father of tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams in King Richard, created a resounding scandal by slapping comedian Chris Rock on stage after a bad joke about his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith. Despite Smith's apology, tensions remain between the two men. Since then, the scent of scandal has made Rock shows among the most popular and most coveted tickets in Hollywood.

"@Chrisrock invited me to open for one of his shows. Thanks Chris!" Musk posted on Twitter on Sept. 3.

The richest man in the world seems to have accepted the invitation:"I will try not to flounder too much," Musk added.

The serial entrepreneur did not provide further details. It does not give, for example, the date of the show which it will open or the place where it will take place. Rock is currently touring across the country and in Europe. From Sept. 7-12 he and fellow comedian Dave Chapelle will be on tour in Europe (Netherlands, Germany and Denmark), according to Ticketmaster. And for the rest of the month, the comedian will resume his shows alone in Detroit, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh before New Orleans and New York in early October.

Musk's announcement came as a comment to a post from a video clip from his May 2021 Saturday Night Live hosting gig. He's heard saying "I reinvented electric cars and I'm sending people to Mars in a rocket ship. Did you think I was also going to be a chill normal dude?"

The announcement of the billionaire who has nearly 105 million fans on the platform has completely electrified his fans.

"Great news!!! ," one Twitter user commented with a picture of Rock and Musk.

"You will do well, Elon. Youre pretty hilarious," another user posted.

"No slapping," another user quipped.

"I want to be at this show," added another fan.

Read this article:

Elon Musk Lands The Hottest Gig in Hollywood - TheStreet

Tesla CEO Elon Musk's legal team argues that allegations by Twitter's ex-security chief give him reason to pull out of his agreement to buy the Twitter. Here, Musk speaks at a meeting of energy, oil and gas executives in Norway on August 29. CARINA JOHANSEN/NTB/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Tesla CEO Elon Musk's legal team argues that allegations by Twitter's ex-security chief give him reason to pull out of his agreement to buy the Twitter. Here, Musk speaks at a meeting of energy, oil and gas executives in Norway on August 29.

Billionaire Elon Musk's chances of walking away unscathed from his commitment to buy Twitter just improved, thanks to recent allegations from the company's former security chief.

Twitter looks like a cybersecurity dumpster fire in a whistleblower complaint submitted to federal regulators by Peiter Zatko. He complains of lax security practices that put users' personal data at risk and the social media company in danger of violating a settlement agreement with federal regulators. He also alleges that the Indian government forced Twitter to hire two government agents who had access to sensitive data.

Soon after Zatko's concerns became public, Musk referenced them in new legal claims. The Tesla CEO now argues that Twitter is damaged goods and by hiding such egregious problems, it committed fraud.

Twitter calls Zatko's complaints inaccurate, inconsistent and opportunistic.

Twitter sued Musk in July after he tried to break off the agreement to buy the company for $44 billion. Musk claimed that the company had understated the prevalence of botsor spam accountson its platform and that was justification for his change of heart.

Given that Musk had waived due diligence when he signed the agreementnot to mention that it was he, and not the company, who had sought the acquisitionmany experts believed he had a flimsy legal case.

His legal claims "just always seemed like such an incredibly long shot argument to begin with," said Ann Lipton, a business and securities law professor at Tulane University. "The other allegations hair-raising data-security and intellectual-property problems those at least have a lot more potential."

The trial is scheduled to begin October 17 in Delaware. Musk has asked the judge for a delay so that his legal team could gather more information about what went on inside Twitter.

Twitter has claimed that any delay hurts its business and shareholders.

Zatko, who also goes by his hacker handle "Mudge," worked as Twitter's head of security from 2020 until January. During that time, he says, company leaders including CEO Parag Agrawal ignored his warnings about serious security flaws. In a whistleblower complaint filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice, Zatko alleges that executives ignored these problems.

Twitter said Zatko's complaint is a "false narrative" and inaccurate, and that he was fired for poor performance.

The company is under an FTC consent agreement, signed in 2011 after hackers repeatedly seized control and tweeted from a handful of users' accounts. At the time, the agency said Twitter "failed to take reasonable steps" to safeguard its system. The agreement requires the company to maintain a comprehensive security system and be truthful with users about the extent to which it protects their personal information.

After Zatko's allegations became public, Musk filed a new letter to terminate the contract to buy Twitter. His lawyers argue that, if the allegations are true, the FTC could fine Twitter millions of dollars for violating the consent agreement.

"Twitter has already paid a fine of $150 million for violating an aspect of that decree, and Facebook recently paid $5 billion for similar user data violations," the letter notes.

That risk, previously hidden, gives Musk the right to walk away, it says.

Zatko is scheduled to be deposed by Musk's lawyers on Sept. 9. The following week, he's slotted to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

If Zatko's claims are accurate, "they may show dangerous data privacy and security risks for Twitter users around the world," the top lawmakers on the committee, Democrat Dick Durbin of Illinois and and Republican Chuck Grassley of Iowa, said in a statement, pledging the committee would "get to the bottom of these alarming allegations."

Senators have also asked the FTC to investigate Twitter. The agency has declined to comment.

Originally posted here:

Elon Musk's case against Twitter may be helped by whistleblower's claims - NPR