unless you have been living under a rock the past few months most of us are highly familiar with
elon musk's ongoing love and hate relationship with twitter having personally used the social
media platform for well over a decade musket first decided to bid for the company only to backtrack
from his decision months later resulting in a fierce battle between him and the company over
the purchase hello everyone and welcome back to elon musk evolution where we keep you up to speed
on all the latest news and gossip relating to our favorite south african billionaire elon musk
and his globally renowned companies in today's video we will uncover the latest development in
the ongoing battle between musk and his twitter takeover with the tycoon now openly challenging
twitter ceo to a public debate musk has been an avid user of the short text-based social media
platform way back since june 2009 he is one of the top active profiles in the global website
with over 100 million people following his account he's also famous or infamous
for his often unfiltered politically incorrect remarks and tweets about everything from space
faring cars politics and cryptocurrency the saga started off when musk not so secretly bought 9.1
percent of twitter's ownership on april 4th 2022 for an estimated 2.64 billion dollars
in effect becoming the company's single largest shareholder after the reveal the company's stock
prices surged by 27 percent and experienced the largest single day share price rise since
going public back in 2013. with the shareholding musk was offered a board of director's seat at
the company with the condition that he could not acquire not more than 14.9 percent of the company
in response musk declined the appointment before it would have been effective from april 9.
just over a week after his initial purchase musk made an unsolicited offer on april 14th
to buy the company for 43 billion dollars and take it private citing the importance of free speech
for democracy around the world in a ted interview specifically musk commented twitter should match
the laws of the country when talking about the issues of free speech internet censorship and
twitter's moderation policies in particular how twitter has actively scrubbed and even deleted the
accounts of famous users most notoriously donald trump who became the first former us president
to be banned from the site after his inciting comments during the capitol hill riots back
in january 6 2021 one day after the sudden news twitter's board instituted a poison pill measure
allowing its shareholders to buy more stock in the event of a hostile takeover this was meant
to dilute musk's current ownership and make the company less appealing for the billionaire to
take over by april 20th musk arranged funding for 46.5 billion dollars as a tender offer to acquire
the company at a fixed purchase price of 54.20 per share which was slightly higher than the current
trading price at the time after five days of deliberation twitter's management finally agreed
to musk's purchase and disclosed to the media about the agreements in terms between both parties
after the purchase notice musk made a number of statements regarding his upcoming plans to change
twitter namely at a ted 2022 conference musk spoke in general terms about allowing more unmoderated
content to be approved citing free speech from a democratic and libertarian perspective
the remark sounds quite positive however critics have highlighted that it may provide grounds for
more hate speech cyber bullying and harassment to flourish at the conference musk mentioned he would
defend some of the content the social media website considers as violations of its terms
of service saying if it's a gray area i would say let the tweet exist owing to musk's lack of
experience running a social media and advertising platform like twitter skeptics have been quick to
point out his supposed ineptitude siva vodkanathan author of a book about facebook and the director
of the center of media and citizenship at the university of virginia boldly remarked
he doesn't seem to have a sophisticated notion of what it means to engage in a global media business
she also added he's never been in this business he's been in a scatter shot of businesses that
have nothing to do with media or communication it's interesting to point out that all of musk's
companies current or defunct barely consider the notions of advertising and revenues from ad space
musk is famously known for investing heavily in research and development over all else
in fact tesla has the highest total expenditure on research and development among all the major
car manufacturers according to statistica with two thousand nine hundred eighty four
dollars spent per sold car in contrast it spent a total of zero usd in advertising on each car sold
according to the former ceo of tech company reddit ishon wong elon is going to try like
heck to fix the problem he sees each problem he fixes will just cause three more problems
this is in reference to the over sensitive and political correctness and moderation frenzy that
has swept many of the social media platforms most noticeably when twitter banned sitting president
trump from the website for tweets the platform deemed as insightful and promoting violence
in response to the historic ban trump boldly formed his very own invite-only social media
site dub truth social ultimately after intense deliberation twitter's board and top management
agreed to musk's tender offer and new plans for the company on the grounds that musk's arrival
would positively benefit the company's performance and future prospects however within only three
months on july 8th musk made a spectacular about face and reneged on his earlier commitment to buy
twitter his main reason cited was the inability of twitter's top brass to share information regarding
the number of bought fake accounts on the social media site additionally he also protested the
dismissing of several high-ranking employees it must be argued that ever since he proposed the
purchase musk has been insistent on getting the true number of fake spam accounts on the website
according to him during the purchase twitter assured the tycoon that the platform had around
five percent of its total users classified as faker spam in response musk initially got a
vague metric that was pulled specifically on his request the billionaire remained adamant
for receiving the updated data unfortunately for musk he got the same treatment from twitter
receiving incomplete pictures of the situation and outdated data sets repeatedly he requested updated
data on real versus fake accounts and how such accounts were identified as being real or fake
naturally twitter's management and shareholders became outraged at the turn of events
ever since musk's u-turn the company has vehemently claimed that musk is simply
finding excuses to pull out of his promised deal and calls the request for the fake accounts
as a distraction twitter board member brett taylor vowed legal action against musk's unilateral move
and filed a lawsuit against him at the delaware court of chancery to force the completion of the
earlier agreed acquisition the company formally launched the lawsuit on july 12 with proceedings
slated to begin from october 17th onwards in response musk arranged a high-profile defense
legal team consisting of the firm's walktale lipton rosen and cats along with his previously
used firm quinn emanuel urquhart and sullivan he countersued the company on july 29th stating
that the company was bumping its account numbers through spambots musk's legal filing suggests that
he believes twitter is seriously underestimating and concealing the true extent of fake accounts
with a purported 33 percent of visible accounts and 10 percent of monetized daily active users
consisting of spam bots the latest development in the musk versus twitter feud is musk now openly
challenging current twitter ceo parag agrawal to participate in a public debate regarding the true
number of fake accounts the current ceo originally born in azmer india has been serving as the head
of the company since november 2021 after founder jack dorsey stepped down elon musk in typical
fashion took to twitter to publicly declare the challenge i hereby challenge at paraga to a public
debate about the twitter bot percentage let him prove to the public that twitter has less than
five percent fake or spam daily users similarly musk tweeted another daring message to the folks
at the social media platform when he launched a yes no poll with the question less than five
percent of twitter daily users are fake spam his followers responded overwhelmingly in the negative
with 64.9 percent of participants total number of accounts used to vote was an impressive 822
7766 answering lmao no instead of yes till now the company has yet to respond to musk's invitation
and is keeping silent on the matter the company's legal team though has rebutted musk's claims
as factually inaccurate legally insufficient and commercially irrelevant regarding the open
debate suggested by musk there are already reports that a media network and two cable channels are in
discussion about getting the rights to air the sensational debate for the time being it appears
that twitter will try to contain musk's repeated rants and outbursts and will bide its time until
the official court hearings start in october until then be assured that musk will continue to incite
the social media giant to react or make a move in order to intensify the ongoing battle we really
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