Intervening on the story of the day, Business Minister Paul Scully has confirmed before a Commons Select Committee that the government is not planning on arresting Elon Musk the next time he visits Britain. MP Nus Ghani asked the question in light of the DCMS Online Harms Bill, which “mandates that platforms have to remove content that emotionally distresses people – so are we going to be arresting Elon Musk when he arrives in the UK, or are we going to change the Online Safety Bill?”
Scully: “We won’t be arresting Elon Musk, I can leave that with you.”
On a more serious note, as the Institute for Economic Affairs’ Matthew Lesh pointed out last night, although Elon’s victory might herald the imminent return of free speech to the platform, he’s about to run into a major UK roadblock. Drop the plan, Nadine…
Elon Musk has made a “best and final” offer to buy Twitter Inc., saying the company has extraordinary potential and he will unlock it. He is also committed to reversing the company’s encroachment on freedom of speech…
I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy.
However, since making my investment I now realize the company will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form. Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company.
As a result, I am offering to buy 100% of Twitter for $54.20 per share in cash, a 54% premium over the day before I began investing in Twitter and a 38% premium over the day before my investment was publicly announced. My offer is my best and final offer and if it is not accepted, I would need to reconsider my position as a shareholder.
Twitter has extraordinary potential. I will unlock it.
Elon Musk
Guido for one wants him to unlock an edit function…
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has bought a $2.89 billion stake in Twitter, making him the largest outside shareholder in the social media firm, not long after criticising the company for failing to uphold the tenets of free speech.
Musk now owns 73,486,938 shares of Twitter, which represents a 9.2% passive stake in the company, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission filing released this morning. The stake is worth $2.89 billion, based on Twitter’s closing price on Friday. The stock has shot up some 25% in pre-market trading…
This comes less than two weeks after Musk criticised the company, polling people on Twitter about whether Twitter adheres to free speech principles. “Given that Twitter serves as the de facto public town square, failing to adhere to free speech principles fundamentally undermines democracy,” Musk tweeted. “What should be done?” Guido for one welcomes Musk’s intervention, if he can stop Twitter’s increasingly woke censorship tendency…
UPDATE: This graphic taken from a Bloomberg article about his tweeting shows how active he is on the platform:
He’s a prolific tweeter!
The Guardian has raised eyebrows this morning after publishing an article accusing Time Magazine of making the “worst choice ever” picking Elon Musk as Person of the Year. Time praised him for his inventions, endeavours, and creating the most valuable car company in the world – and described him as a “clown, genius, edgelord, visionary, industrialist, showman”. The American left ain’t convinced…
Elizabeth Warren responded by calling him a freeloader, demanding the US tax code be fixed, with Congressman Pramila Jayapal echoing Warren by tweeting “It’s *TIME* for Elon Musk to pay his fair share in taxes.” Geddit…
Author Kurt Eichenwald called him “may be the worst choice ever” for the title. Guido gently reminds both Kurt and the Guardian that in 1938 and 1939 Hitler and Stalin won the award respectively:
The ‘worst choice ever’ ship has very much sailed…
According to a report in the Mail on Sunday, Whitehall disaster planners have contingency plans codenamed ‘Operation Yellowhammer’ to deal with the risk of Britain running out of clean drinking water within days of a no-deal Brexit. Britons would supposedly become dehydrated zombies because crucial chemicals used in water purification are imported to the UK from Europe. Apparently in order to make water safe to drink, suppliers add chemicals; including fluorosilicic acid, aluminium sulphate, calcium hydroxide and sodium silicofluoride. These we are warned can’t be stockpiled because they are too volatile. This we are told is one of the reasons why Gove has converted to May’s deal.
Is it really beyond the wit of the scientific powerhouse that is one of the world’s five leading industrial nations to produce the necessary chemicals to clean water? This is yet another example of the civil service making the worst possible extrapolations, which are fantastically improbable and assume no corrective action in the unlikely event it were required, like finding another source. Guido is amazed that an intelligent cabinet minister, particularly a minister like Gove who has been famously sceptical of the “no can do” attitude of civil servants, would give this nonsense any credence…
Don’t worry, Elon Musk has just tweeted a plan to save our island nation:
For those worried about running out of fresh water, it may help to know that desalination only costs 0.1 cents per liter or half a cent per gallon
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 26, 2018
If it were needed…
When approached for comment on his marijuana smoking by The Guardian, Musk replied:
“Guardian is the most insufferable newspaper on planet Earth”
