Tag: Elon Musk

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Tesla investors suing Musk for 2018 tweet present their case

Tesla investors who took founder Elon Musk to court over a 2018 tweet are presenting their case today.

The tweet stated Musk was considering taking Tesla private and had already secured the funding.

As reported by Bloomberg, Musk’s tweet led to the company’s share prices suffering “massive losses.” Musk defended his tweet and said his plan was based on conversations he had with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.

Citing analysts, the publication reports a trial loss could leave Musk and Tesla on the hook for more than $1 billion.

But that’s not the only large bill Musk is currently facing. He’s under a deadline to complete the $44 billion acquisition of Twitter by week’s end. Failure to do so will result in a trial.

However, as Reuters reports, Musk seems to be taking steps to secure the funding. The publication recently tweeted Musk has notified his co-investors to “prepare to fund” the acquisition.

Image credit: Shutterstock

Source: Bloomberg, Reuters

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Elon Musk plans to fire 75 percent of Twitter employees

Elon Musk is back in the news (is he ever not in the news?) over reports that he plans to cut some 75 percent of Twitter’s staff following the acquisition.

According to a report from The Washington Post , Musk told prospective investors in his deal to buy Twitter about his plans to cut staff. Currently, there are 7,500 employees at Twitter — the cuts would bring that down to around 2,000.

Job cuts were always on the table for Musk, although the latest numbers are far, far great than before. In June, a pitch deck hinted Musk aimed to cut around 900 jobs at Twitter. Moreover, the Post noted that Twitter management already had plans to cut the company’s payroll by about $800 million USD (roughly $1.1 billion CAD) by the end of next year, suggesting cuts were coming regardless of the Musk acquisition.

Beyond employees, Twitter reportedly planned to cut its infrastructure, including data centres, which help keep the website functioning for the over 200 million daily active users.

Still, Musk’s cuts are much bigger, and Twitter’s former head of spam and health metrics described them as “unimaginable” to The Post. Twitter users would likely notice the change right away, and that they would be at increased risk of hacks and exposure to offensive content.

Moreover, The Verge reported that several big names in private equity passed on Musk’s deal. That includes T. Rowe Price, TPG, and Warburg Pincus. LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman also passed, as did Peter Thiel’s venture firm Founders Fund. (Both Hoffman and Thiel worked at PayPal, as did Musk.

Musk told investors he plans to double Twitter’s revenue in three years but didn’t explain how that would happen. I’d also like to know how Musk plans to do this after gutting Twitter’s staff and risking disruptions to the service.

The Twitter deal is expected to close on October 28th, and sources familiar with it told The Post that it’s moving forward in good faith after months of fighting.

Source: The Washington Post Via: The Verge

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SpaceX reveals plans to launch 350 Mbps satellite internet on planes

Using the internet on a plane is typically an expensive and awful experience, but that could soon change.

Following the launch of Starlink for RVs, Elon Musk-owned SpaceX has revealed Starlink Aviation, a new project that aims to equip airplanes with the company’s Aero Terminal kits starting in 2023.

According to Starlink Aviation’s FAQ page, the service will be available worldwide to planes equipped with an Aero Terminal. The only catch is that the plane needs to have an unobstructed view of the sky. In theory, Starlink’s low-earth satellites should be able to provide internet to passengers when a plane is over water, taxiing or even waiting to take off.

Given most in-flight internet is limited to 100 Mbps (if you’re lucky), Starlink’s far faster 350 Mbps allows users to do more things while on a flight, including playing online games or even making video calls.

Starlink has yet to announce what airlines will offer its new Aviation service. It’s likely that since the Terminal kits won’t launch until 2023, it will be a few months before we get a list of airlines that are part of the platform.

That said, Hawaiian Airlines recently announced that it’s deploying Starlink in select aircraft, and Delta has stated that it’s running “exploratory” Starlink tests.

It’s unclear how much Starlink Aviation will cost passengers to use or what the price of Terminals Kits is for airlines.

Image credit: Shutterstock

Source: SpaceX Via: Engadget

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Elon Musk sold $2 million worth of ‘Burnt Hair’ cologne in 24 hours

Elon Musk is now entering the fragrance industry with an “Omnigender” cologne name ‘Burnt Hair,’ proving yet again that his fanboys will buy anything with his name on it.

“The finest fragrance on Earth!” and “The Essence of Repugnant Desire” is what Musk and his Boring Company describe the cologne as.

The cologne is available for $141 in Canada, with a $50 shipping charge, bringing the total to $191. The amount can be paid with cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Dogecoin, Ethereum and stablecoins such as Dai, USDC, BUSD and more.

“Please buy my perfume, so I can buy Twitter,” Tweeted Musk. According to VanityFair, the world’s richest man sold over $2 Million worth of ‘Burnt Hair’ within the first 24 hours of its release, which is pocket change considering his massive $44 billion USD bid to acquire Twitter.

Since the cologne hasn’t shipped yet (ships in Q1 2023), we don’t really know if it actually smells like burnt hair. It would be funny if it actually does, because the bottles would live on as collector’s item as I doubt anyone would want to spray that on themselves

This isn’t the first time Musk is selling products that he has no business selling. Back in 2018, Musk’s Boring Company started selling a flamethrower, whereas more recently, in 2020, Musk’s Tesla listed short shorts for $69.420 with the Tesla logo in front with “S3XY” across the back.

Source: Vanity Fair

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Twitter whistleblower reportedly burned handwritten notebooks and deleted 100 files of evidence

The latest development in the Elon Musk vs. Twitter fiasco came earlier last week, when it was reported that the billionaire wants to revive his original buyout offer, and acquire Twitter for $44 billion USD (roughly $59.5 billion CAD).

However, a new report from Bloomberg suggests that right before reviving the offer, Musk reportedly accused Twitter of ordering the whistleblower Peiter “Mudge” Zatko to destroy evidence relating to the company as part of a $7.8 million (roughly $10.7 million CAD) severance package.

Zatko’s allegations were an integral part of Musk’s case against the company, and up until last week, the whistleblower’s allegations were to be used in court to justify Musk walking away from the acquisition deal. According to Zatko, the company is practicing “extreme, egregious deficiencies” related to privacy, security and content moderation.

According to Zatko, prior to him being fired in January, reportedly due to poor work performance, he had warned Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal about major privacy and computer security risks related to the social media platform’s operations that constituted violations of agreements the business had made with government regulators. One of the allegations was that too many of Twitter’s employees have access to critical systems and users’ sensitive personal data, while Zatko also alleged that Twitter repeatedly made “false and misleading statements” to users and the FTC, violating an agreement from its 2010 settlement with the FTC over a failure to protect consumers’ personal information.

Zatko says he burned 10 handwritten notebooks and deleted 100 computer files as part of his separation agreement, as written in the October 3rd court filings that were unsealed Monday, October 10th. “Twitter’s attempt to buy Mr. Zatko’s silence failed, but Twitter achieved its secondary aim of ensuring Mr. Zatko’s corroborating evidence would never come to light,” Musk’s lawyers said in the unsealed filing, via Bloomberg.

Musk’s lawyers are now accusing Twitter’s top two lawyers, namely Vijaya Gadde and Sean Edgett, alongisde Twitter’s chief privacy officer Damien Kieran and Agrawal of covering up the violations of the legal settlements by ordering Zatko to destroy his documents.

The Twitter vs. Musk trial, which was originally scheduled for October 17th has now been postponed to November, while Musk has until October 28th to close the deal, according to Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick, head of the Delaware Chancery Court.

Image credit: Shutterstock

Source: Bloomberg

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Musk vs. Twitter trial pushed to October 28th to give the billionaire time to close acquisition deal

After months of back and forth between Elon Musk and Twitter, it seems like Tesla’s CEO will go through with acquiring Twitter for his initial $44 billion buyout offer.

According to a CP24 report, after reviving his buyout offer on Monday, October 3rd, Musk said he needs some time to get the funding required in order. Hence, the Twitter vs. Musk trial that was initially set to take place on October 17th  has now been postponed to sometime in November, while Musk has until October 28th to close the deal, said Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick, head of the Delaware Chancery Court.

It is reported that Musk will acquire a majority of the funds by selling his Tesla shares, while the rest will be acquired by large investors and major banks. Back in April, when news about the Twitter acquisition first came out, it was reported that two Canadian banks were lending Musk money for the deal, namely RBC and CIBC. The two banks had put up $955 million CAD and $500 million CAD, respectively, totalling $1.46 billion CAD. The new round of funding, however, as shared by Reuters, does not have the two banks listed.

A brief timeline of Musk vs. Twitter can be found here.

Image credit: Shutterstock

Source: CP24 

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Elon Musk reportedly ready to acquire Twitter for original $44 billion price

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is reportedly reviving his original Twitter buyout offer, proposing to acquire the company for $54.20 USD (about $73.26 CAD) per share, in a deal valued at $44 billion USD (roughly $59.5 billion CAD), as reported by Bloomberg.

According to unnamed sources familiar with the matter, Musk reportedly made the proposal in a letter to Twitter.

A brief timeline of how we got here

Musk had initially backed out of the Twitter deal quoting concerns over the platform’s bot count. During the time, Musk’s legal representatives sent a letter to the SEC, saying that “For nearly two months, Mr. Musk has sought the data and information necessary to ‘make an independent assessment of the prevalence of fake or spam accounts on Twitter’s platform…Twitter has failed or refused to provide this information.” According to Twitter, roughly five percent of its active users are bots, whereas Musk argues that the actual number is much higher.

Quoting said concerns, Musk wanted out of the Twitter deal. Subsequently, Twitter sued Musk, alleging his spam bot complaint was manufactured to get out of the deal. Fast forward to now and the Twitter vs. Elon Musk trial is set to begin on October 17th and will conclude on the 21st in Delaware’s Court of Chancery. That is, if the news about Musk agreeing to buy out Twitter for $44 billion USD (roughly $59.5 billion CAD) turns out to be false.

Twitter’s stock jumped roughly 16 percent since the news of Musk agreeing to acquire Twitter came out earlier today.

Source: Bloomberg

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SpaceX’s Starlink to gain more ground in Canada later this year

Starlink’s internet services will be available to more Canadians later this year, Elon Musk told a disappointed Starlink fan on Twitter.

The response stems from a post stating the internet service is available in all seven continents, with one respondent replying, “just sad it’s not available for 70 percent of Canada.”

That prompted Musk to respond. “It will be later this year when laser links activate on polar constellation.”

While positive news, it’s unclear how much the update will impact the 70 percent figure.

It’s clear the company has support in Canada, and even government bodies are utilizing its services. Both the Governments of Canada and Quebec have utilized Starlink to connect Canadians with high-speed internet access on separate occasions.

Image credit: Shutterstock

Source: @elonmusk Via: Tesla North 

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Elon Musk tries to back out of Twitter deal yet again, cites whistleblower’s severance

Another day, another Elon Musk Twitter story.

The latest developments saw Musk’s legal team send a letter to Twitter in another attempt to terminate the billionaire’s plans to acquire the social media platform.

According to The Verge, Musk’s legal team sent the letter to Twitter’s chief legal officer and filed it with the SEC on September 9th. The document again brings up whistleblower Peiter Zatko, a former company exec. Late last month, Zatko alleged the company lied about bots and security issues. The document states Twitter’s multimillion-dollar severance payment to Zatko breaches the acquisition agreement.

In response, Twitter says it didn’t violate any obligations set out in the agreement. “The purported termination set forth in your September 9th, 2022 letter is invalid and wrongful under the agreement,” the response, filed with SEC on Monday, states.

“Twitter has breached none of its representations or obligations under the agreement, and following the receipt of the approval of Twitter’s stockholders at its September 13th 2022 special meeting, all of the conditions precedent to the closing of the merger will be satisfied.”

According to the Wall Street Journal, Zatko will recieve roughly $7 million, a figure related to lost compensation agreed upon before he left his post.

Source: SEC and the Wall Street Journal Via: The Verge

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Elon Musk’s SpaceX had ‘promising’ talks with Apple about iPhone Starlink connectivity

One of the more interesting announcements from Apple’s ‘Far Out’ fall iPhone event was the addition of ‘Emergency SOS,’ a feature that enables iPhones to connect to satellites in case of an emergency.

Although Apple said it’s working with satellite service firm Globalstar to power the feature, some wondered what, if any, connection SpaceX and Starlink might have to Emergency SOS in the future, especially given the company’s recent partnership with U.S. carrier T-Mobile.

According to SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, it’s just been “promising conversations” so far.

“We’ve had some promising conversations with Apple about Starlink connectivity. iPhone team is obv super smart. For sure, closing link from space to phone will work best if phone software & hardware adapt to space-based signals vs Starlink purely emulating cell tower,” Musk wrote in a tweet.

To add some clarity, the Starlink x T-Mobile partnership leverages the carrier’s PCS spectrum (in the 1850-1990MHz range) to provide coverage for texting and voice calls. That’s likely what Musk means when he refers to “emulating cell tower.”

Per Reuters, Apple has dedicated $450 million USD (about $587 million CAD) from its advanced manufacturing fund toward satellite infrastructure to support the service. Emergency SOS will be available in the U.S. and Canada starting in November.

Source: Elon Musk (Twitter) Via: Reuters