New Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino sent out her first company-wide email. There's a lot of caps, italics, bold and underlined words and she makes it clear she's working for Musk's vision: "Twitter is on a mission to become the world's most accurate real-time information source." She doesn't use the phrase "free speech" but does say "You should have the freedom to speak your mind. We all should."

(It's worth noting that there's plenty of examples where people can't speak what's on their mind on here.)

In 2014, Jeffrey Epstein was scheduled to meet with a lot of influential folks, some from Silicon Valley.

One tech billionaire who was listed on Epstein's schedule?

Peter Thiel.

(w/ @MattGoldstein26)

nytimes.com/2023/05/18/bus… @MattGoldstein26 It's unclear if these meetings actually happened. Thiel's spox declined to comment.

Documents we revealed show at least three meetings scheduled in Sept. 2014. One those scheduled meetings was a dinner between Thiel, Epstein, Woody Allen, and others.

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
int.nyt.com/data/documentt… The suit has a hodgepodge of accusations, and the plaintiffs say they relied on the representations made to them by Twitter's previous management that severance agreements would be upheld per the co's merger agreement with Musk.

If you want to know how Linda Yaccarino’s CEO announcement was being positioned internally, some Twitter employees were told in a weekly email on Fri.

It was the number 2 announcement under “🔥What’s Happening” at the company. The first was an update on ad safety controls. The email makes it clear what her responsibilities will be: “to lead the charge on business operations” and make advertisers “excited to invest their money.”

Twitter says it launched its first phase of encrypted DMs. But it appears there are a bunch of caveats... Here are the caveats:

-Sender and recipient have to be on the latest Twitter app.

-Sender and recipient have to be subscribed to Twitter Blue or verified organizations.

-The recipient has to follow the sender or have communicated with them before

help.twitter.com/en/using-twitt…

Listening to this Twitter Space with Musk and it’s interesting how he talks about the business when he came in. He said the company was facing negative $3 bil cash flow, in part, because of the $1.5 bil of servicing of debt a year.

But who loaded the company with that debt? Musk is going to his talking points and speaking on how Twitter emphasizes "unregretted user minutes."

It may sound nice for bankers and advertisers, but how does Twitter measure that metric? Is the co doing user research? Because it fired many of the folks who used to do that.

Musk just commented for the first time on why he's suspending all the accounts tracking billionaires' jets and other planes.

He's changing Twitter's rules as he goes, and here's the proof to show it: On the left is Twitter's "Private information and media policy" as of today, Dec. 14, 2022: help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-p…

On the right is that same page, from @waybackmachine, dated Dec. 13, 2022: web.archive.org/web/2022121310…

Notice the use of the word "live."

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. @JxckSweeney @ElonJet Musk himself had pointed to the account's existence as his supposed commitment to free speech on Twitter.

Sweeney says he had changed nothing on the jet account, which is automated. "He put out that tweet, and then went against his own word," he says.

Elon Musk is speaking on a Twitter Space right now about the opening up of the so-called "Twitter Files." He claims he gave unfettered access to emails and documents to Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss and at least one other person. Musk once again claims that there is evidence of Twitter "meddling in elections". He tweeted this morning suggesting that this happened in Brazil.

Again, this is what he is *saying*.

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)

nytimes.com/2022/11/15/tec… Some employees who had shared tweets of a colleague's firing on Slack were also then fired themselves.

nytimes.com/2022/11/15/tec…

Not going to share screenshots, but the rate at which versions of the Buffalo video continue to proliferate on Facebook and Twitter is astonishing. We've been here before with Christchurch and it continues to happen. It's gone from a Twitch livestream that was reportedly up for less than 2 minutes, to a rapidly spreading hydra of versions of live recording videos. It's spreading through bad actors, morbid human curiosity, and the inability of platforms to keep up.

Here’s Vernon Unsworth leaving court. He says he’ll respect the jury verdict and “take it on the chin.” His lawyer Mark Stephens says Unsworth was asked to “sue or true.”

“He went toe to toe with a billionaire bully.”

Elon musk is not liable for damages. He won. Musk is nodding up and down. Unsworth stone faced

Day four in the Elon Musk defamation trial and a jury verdict is expected today.

Musk is here. I just rode in the same elevator up and asked if he’ll be sitting for the jury verdict.

“I... think so,” he said before the elevator opened and one of his guards blocked me off. I initially asked if he’s allowed to talk about the trial and he said “no” before looking back down at his phone where he was checking a game called Polytopia.

A photo of me entering court for day three of the Musk defamation trial. Wish me luck. Back on the stand is plaintiff Vernon Unsworth, who will finish his tesitomony. We should get thru plaintiff witnesses today. The others include Vanessa Unsworth, the plaintiff’s separated wife, and an expert witness who will try to quantify the reach of the “pedo guy” tweet.

Back at court for the Musk defamation trial. He just entered the court. Im getting oddly good at timing these entrances and exits.

This will be my Day 2 thread. Unsworth in a pink shirt and pinker tie just entered the courthouse with the majority of his legal team about 3 mins after Musk.

Just got to the courthouse for the first day of the Elon Musk defamation trial. He’s expected to take the stand today for the first time ever to defend himself against a British man he called a “pedo guy” on Twitter. Here are the cameras waiting for him.

This is my day 1 thread. Like a true Angeleno I commuted to the courthouse today. Here is my whip.