Elon Musk has responded to The Washington Post’s claims that he had set up his own online “attack dogs” on Twitter executives. He pointed out that The Washington Post attacks him all the time.
Musk agreed Monday to the terms for a Twitter buyout worth $44 billion. However, Musk reacted on Tuesday to a decision by Vijaya Gadde, the top lawyer at the company.
He also refuted the claims of bullying Gadde by making public comments on Wednesday. Gadde earns $17million-per-year, and is known as Twitter’s “moral authority”.
Musk stated that the Washington Post has been relentlessly targeting him. They could have used better insults, but they are not all bad. Yelp gave me 3 stars.
Because it’s owned by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, the Post was accused of hypocrisy. Bezos asked Monday if Musk might be affected by China, after buying Twitter. China is an important market for Tesla.
The remark was made even though Twitter has been banned in China. And Bezos failed to mention his own firm’s kotowing to China, which included removing less than glowing reviews for a book of President Xi Jinping’s speeches.
A tweeter also suggested that New York Times’ Twitter account might be fake. It is because only a small percentage of its 50,000,000 followers interact or retweet its posts.
Gadde was the subject of a national scandal after she broke down during a Monday meeting, while briefing 350 employees about the possible changes Musk might make to her company.
Saagar Enjeti, a political podcast host, tweeted that Gadde had been instrumental in temporarily suspending The New York Post’s Twitter account to report on Hunter Biden’s laptop. Musk responded: “Suspending the twitter account of a major newspaper for publishing truthful stories was clearly incredibly inappropriate.”
The critic of Gadde was amplified by him sharing a meme on Wednesday with his 86 million fans, showing Gadde in action and suggesting that Gadde’s company decisions were influenced by a “left-wing bias.”
The Washington Post responded with an article entitled “Elon Musk boosts critics of Twitter executives, leading to online attacks”
April Glaser, senior researcher at Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy, said that Musk has used Twitter to pursue critics. He would want greater control over that slingshot, it’s no surprise.
Elon Musk is continuing to be a free-wheeling tweeter and does not allow a clause in the deal to purchase Twitter to stop him from making fun of top executives
The Washington Post called Musk out Wednesday for criticizing Twitter CEOs
Musk sent several negative tweets to Vijaya Gadde who is Twitter’s chief attorney and was responsible for removing Trump from the platform.
The New York Times’ richest man suggested that he was purchasing followers.
Dave Rubin, conservative commentator, tweeted: Hi @elonmusk! As long as you’re digging, look into how @nytimes and @forbes bought their followers on Twitter to create fake influence.
The NY Times is followed by 53 million people and receives only 50 Retweets.
“I could send a picture of an 80’s sitcom star with a banana emoticon and another pic to get even more. (See the next tweet.
Musk said, “Yeah. That’s what I saw too.” It’s quite strange.
Earlier on Wednesday, Musk, 50, bashed Donald Trump’s rival service Truth Social for its ‘terrible name’.
Musk tweeted that ‘Truth Social (terrible title) exists because Twitter has censored freedom speech’. He also added, “Should be named Trumpet instead!”
The Truth Social app currently beats Twitter and TikTok, according to his App Store ranking.
Staffers were angry and upset about Musk’s acquisition, according to reports.
According to one employee, a top software engineer said that “We all are going through the five stages in grief in cycles” and that everyone’s nerves were frazzled. This was reportedly what he wrote on company’s Slack channel.
The staffer called Musk an ‘a**hole,’ and tried to console his colleagues.
“We are all just spinning our wheels and coming up for the worst possible scenarios” (Trump returns). Moderation is dead!).
“The truth is that [Musk]He hasn’t spoken about his plans in detail, except for broad statements that can be seen as showboating hyperbolic.
One site reliability engineer wrote that it was ‘physically cringy watching Elon talk about free speech.’
An experienced video engineer on staff announced that he was quitting, saying, “It’s not the right time to do it, but after this takeover, I won’t be working for this company.”
Musk perhaps did little to allay Twitter staffers fears as he posted several tweets critical of Gadde, Twitter’s chief legal officer.
Her role was key in the decision to remove Trump from the platform, and to censor Hunter Biden’s reporting.
Elon Musk, 50 years old, responded Tuesday to a story about Vijaya Gadde’s lawyer at Twitter (left), crying after the announcement of his takeover
You can see the reply to Elon Musk’s tweet, above, and Vijaya Gadde’s harsh attack right below.
A clause in the merger agreement forbids Musk from inflicting insults on Twitter representatives through tweets regarding the merger agreement
Musk also singled Jim Baker out, Twitter’s attorney, following a conservative commentator Mike Cernovich’s criticism of Baker’s work.
Jim Baker, a Twitter lawyer, organized a meeting between Michael Sussmann and the FBI. Sussmann gave fabricated evidence during the Alfa bank matter meeting,” Cernovich tweeted. This was in reference to the Crossfire Hurricane probe into Trump’s 2016 campaign.
“@elonmusk” is who’s inside Twitter. He helped facilitate fraud.
Musk then replied: ‘Sounds pretty bad …’
Musk’s criticisms of Twitter executives brought up questions as to whether he was violating his agreement to purchase the company. It states that Musk is permitted to post about the deal’solong as these Tweets don’t disparage the Company and any of its Representatives’.
Twitter’s mechanism for enforcing this clause, if any, is unclear. The company’s board may also not be able to accomplish it.
Also, the clause applies to tweets only that relate to the merger agreement. This leaves it up to interpretation as to whether Musk’s comments about Twitter executives could be impliedly linked to his plans for buying the company.
After he was a self-described free-speech absoluteist, he is now likely to cut Twitter’s hate speech and misinformation policies.
The Twitter employees have been assured that they are in safe hands for six months after the ownership transfer is completed.
However, Gadde and other workers will likely be the ones to go.
It was her role that led to the removal of Donald Trump’s platform account for inciting unrest.
Twitter first blocked the New York Post main account following publication of the article and requested that it remove tweets linking back to Biden articles.
The ban was justified by the prohibition against distributing hack material. However, the company backed down after the story was proved to be true.
Saagar Enjeti hosts a YouTube conservative show and tweeted the link to Politico’s report on Gadde’s tearful comments.
Politico claimed that Gadde’s tears were in response to fears about the potential changes at the company.
Trenton Kennedy, a Twitter spokesperson, told Politico Gadde became emotional while discussing the impact of her team and how proud she is about them.
Since 2011, when she joined Twitter, she has been a central part of the company’s policies on misinformation, hate speech and censorship.
Musk made it clear that he plans to lift many restrictions and allow Twitter to be used as an open forum for freedom of speech.
Many critics have raised concerns about how it will turn out.