… of their stock accounts in the runup to Elon Musk closing his deal to buy the social media site.
Twitter has frozen equity award accounts for employees days ahead of the deadline to close its deal with Elon Musk, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday, a sign that the social media firm hopes the deal will consummate.
If that sign is accurate, and every indication supports that conclusion, Musk’s acquisition of Twitter has cleared its last major hurdle.
… [T]he change was done “in anticipation of the closing of the pending acquisition of Twitter by an entity controlled by Elon Musk,” according to the report, citing two people familiar with the change.
The last we heard, Musk had agreed to buy the company at his original price. But it was Twitter that threw a wrench in the works by refusing to drop the lawsuit they filed to make Musk buy Twitter.
Don’t ask me why they did that. The only reason I can think of is that there are no adults anymore, and everything is run by spiteful children.
In any event, the judge slapped down Twitter and stopped the trial on the condition that Musk closes the deal by October 28.
A Delaware judge ordered a halt to Twitter’s lawsuits against Elon Musk on the eve of trial to give the billionaire time to finance his $44 billion takeover of the social media platform, according to a Thursday court filing.
The litigation was halted until Oct. 28 at 5 p.m. EDT to allow Musk to finance the deal.
Judge Kathaleen McCormick said if the deal did not close by her deadline the parties were to contact her to schedule a November trial. Musk was scheduled to go to trial on Oct. 17, and his Thursday deposition was postponed by mutual agreement.
Investors appeared to be reassured that the order would end several days of confusion about the state of the deal.
I said back when the shenanigans over this deal started that Musk and Twitter would go back and forth. I even pointed to the lawsuit as a high-stakes attempt to haggle through litigation.
What’s more, I predicted that the deal would close in October, and to expect the completion of Musk’s Twitter takeover early in the new year.
It now looks like he’s on track to meet those milestones.
After that, SCOTUS’ decision on the YouTube suit will most likely compel Musk to relax censorship on Twitter, even if he didn’t really intend to.
So yes, it looks like Trump and everyone else who was banned for political reasons is getting their accounts back.
But that’s just the beginning of the imminent social media shakeup.
We know that Musk doesn’t just want to run Twitter but with freer speech.
He wants to use it as a launchpad for a new open-source app called X.
And now that Kanye West is buying Parler, Musk has been dropping hints of bringing that platform and Truth Social in on his plan X.
That’s three billionaires making big plays in the social media arena.
And then you have Peter Thiel throwing big money behind political candidates.
A lot of folks have been calling these moves publicity stunts. But I think we’ve turned a corner. Dismissing all the time and money these billionaires are throwing around as vanity projects doesn’t hold water anymore.
Remember how back when Trump first announced in 2015, a rumor went around that his whole presidential run was just a ploy to bump up his social proof with some Chinese investors?
Even if that was the case at first, he didn’t bow out despite multiple chances. Maybe he didn’t achieve much, but you can’t say he wasn’t serious.
Musk, Ye, and Thiel seem serious, too.
What they’re doing is what I’ve said Conservatives should have done for years.
Buy movie studios. Buy television networks. Buy social media companies.
Musk and Ye aren’t Conservatives. Trump was stabbed in the back by the Conservative establishment. But it looks like they care more about America than the GOP does.
At minimum, there have been changes in recent years that have moved these maverick billionaires to step in and take an active hand.
Keep in mind that all of these guys have personal intel networks to rival the government’s. They have people on staff to keep them informed of what the competition and the Congress are up to.
One scenario that explains why these non-Cultist billionaires are getting off the bench is their informants making them aware of something that scared the crap out of them.
Elon, Ye, and Trump all have families they care about. If anything could prompt them to take drastic action, it would be some grave threat to their kids’ future.
A leading contender is the looming possibility of nuclear war. Musk and Trump have both expressed grave concern over it.
If dissenters from the regime narrative get free rein to share the other side of the story on Twitter, normie support for the war will evaporate overnight.
Which has to be one reason for Twitter management’s weird behavior during this buyout.
Averting nuclear disaster needn’t be the billionaires’ only motive for getting involved, though. Because it’s just one symptom of the disorder that’s killing the West.
In simple terms, our elites have given up looking out for the common good and are instead driven by a maniacal desire to harm the people they rule over.
If history has taught us anything, it’s that rogue elites are always replaced by new elites. That rule holds true from Ancient Greece up through the American Revolution.
And the new elite can only come from one of two places: outside the old elite, or inside it.
It is not only possible, but likely, that what we’re seeing now is a faction within the current elite in open dissent from their peers’ catastrophic schemes.
Plus they’ve got the power to do it. Elon, Ye, and Trump have the resources to buy networks, politicians, and intel. They also have massive popularity.
For real, nobody likes Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg. Small-souled bugmen want to emulate them, but the Cult’s oligarchs don’t inspire public loyalty.
Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself, but Musk in particular might be giving us our first glimpse of what comes after liberal democracy collapses.
What we can be sure of is that 1776 will not commence again. Nor will the new elite rewind the clock to 1955 or 1988.
In all likelihood, we’ll end up with a new corporate oligarchy. But it won’t insult us with egalitarian pretenses. Nor will it continue prosecuting the Death Cult’s lunatic moral crusade.
P.S. If you read between the lines, Combat Frame XSeed predicted that a consortium of billionaires including Musk would take over.
For a glimpse of what the world after that dawning future might look like, read my hit mech thriller now!
Given that we already have a de facto corporate oligarchy anyway, having a more open and honest oligarchy would probably still be a step up. And again, oligarchs that are merely greedy rather than fanatical Death Cultists would also be a big step up, albeit still a long way from “good”.
“Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.” – C. S. Lewis
To be honest, it’s probably more than we deserve, at this point. We’ve had ample chance to turn the ship around and yet outright refuse to abandon poisonous 20th century behaviors that have done little but make things worse. We should count our blessings it’s not the equivalent of a flood.
It’s often said in dissident circles that current events keep proving Schmitt right. But for my money, first prize goes to de Maistre.
“After that, SCOTUS’ decision on the YouTube suit will most likely compel Musk to relax censorship on Twitter, even if he didn’t really intend to.”
I’ve heard various people say that if Section 230 gets struck down, censorship of social media will get far worse, as the provision that social media companies can avoid legal responsibility for content posted on their platforms as long as they don’t act as a publisher will be gone, meaning that these companies will be legally responsible for any all all content posted on their platforms with no exceptions. If true, this would cause social media companies to clamp down on free speech like never before. Is this true?
The reason Silicon valley firms wanted Section 230 carve-outs in the first place was their correct assessment that they couldn’t police their platforms thoroughly enough to avoid exposure to liability. I’m no lawyer, but based on big tech’s own arguments, the end of Section 230 would soon be followed by the end of social media as we know it. It would just take one death threat, drug deal, or instance of libel slipping through the net to bankrupt any social network in court.
That’s why the most likely outcome of the YouTube trial is a ruling which reiterates that platforms who curate content lose Section 230 immunity and clarifies that censoring users qualifies.
Bruan,
Thanks for the update. Let’s see if Musk unbans my account.
I’m somewhat skeptical so I’ll wait and see..
Also, I’ve heard through the grapevine that Twitter has been hiring FBI agents by the truckload. Do you think this is significant? A prelude to a Federal attempt to forcibly seize Twitter back from Musk after the deal? Perhaps just going through the company with a fine-toothed comb for any potential leverage?
It’s an open secret that US federal agencies are working with the big socials to entrap gullible dissidents. Any agents on Twitter’s payroll would have been hired by the outgoing CEO, most likely for that purpose.
Musk has declared that his first act on Day 1 will be to fire 8,000 Twitter employees. So it’s a good bet he knows that the FBI moles are there, and that they soon won’t be.