NEW: Elon Musk sent a Signal message ordering his staff to aid in the Twitter Files: "please give Bari [Weiss] full access to everything at Twitter. No limits at all.”
That triggered a frenzy inside Twitter, which was under a decade-old FTC order.
NEW: Documents show why Apple pulling its Twitter ads is devastating for Elon Musk: In the first quarter of 2022, Apple was Twitter's top advertiser, accounting for nearly $50M in revenue
IT staff refused to onboard Weiss, worried if she was granted the full access Musk requested Twitter would be breaking the law. The order was a response to previous privacy concerns.
To some, it was unclear if Musk had read it.
Portland police chief says caravan found its way into city despite police plans to keep them on the highway. “We Tried to take precautionary measures during the route to keep them out of the downtown area, to keep them on I-5.” (What I saw: the caravan steered right past police)
Inside Twitter, Musk occupies a 10th-floor conference room with a staging area. There, they wait for the Twitter CEO — sometimes for more than an hour — before being called in.
Meeting guests are instructed not to speak until Musk does.
Days later, two executives with oversight of matters related to the Twitter Files were fired.
Weiss' access was overseen by a chaperone, new Twitter Trust and Safety chief Ella Irwin, whose name appeared in a watermark on one of the documents.
NEW: Three top Twitter executives were fired Thursday as Elon Musk took control of the company. Parag Agrawal, Ned Segal and Vijaya Gadde all hastily shuttled out of the building. Musk now in control of Twitter w/
@lizzadwoskin
NEW: Ads from roughly 40 brands, including Amazon, Uber and Snap, are appearing on white nationalist pages after Elon Musk granted amnesty to previously suspended Twitter accounts. The inadvertant placement of brand ads is fallout from new amnesty policy.
NEW: Elon Musk said he would cut nearly 75 percent of Twitter's staff if he takes control, far deeper cuts than the company's current leadership has proposed. The initial cuts would target lower performers, who scored less than a 3 on performance reviews.
NEW: D.C. Council votes 10-2 to override Mayor Bowser's veto of the measure decriminalizing Metro fare evasion. Effectively, the council votes to decriminalize fare evasion in the District, reducing it to a $50 civil infraction.
#wmata
Uber & Lyft say they’ll have to shut down at 12am Friday because they can’t make drivers employees overnight. But they’ve had nearly a year to come up with an employment model. “The only people who put themselves against the wall have been Lyft and Uber.”
NEW: Twitter had previously conducted a review of
@ElonJet
and determined it didn't violate the company's policies on sharing of private info
Despite that, Elon Musk's site permanently suspended it with a new rationale Wednesday
w/
@drewharwell
NEW: Teslas in Autopilot mode have been in 273 crashes in less than a year, data collected by NHTSA shows, far more than previously known and providing concrete evidence of the features' real-world performance
NEWS: Uber says it will not reclassify drivers as employees in the wake of landmark California law, despite the lack of ride-hail exemption in
#AB5
. Lead attorney argues Uber is exempt from requirements because "drivers’ work is outside the usual course of Uber's business."
NEW: Tesla crashes in Autopilot nearly have nearly tripled in the past year, government data says. The latest tally is 736 crashes, 17 fatalities.
"Tesla is having more severe — and fatal — crashes than people in a normal data set."
w/
@jeremybmerrill
NEW: Twitter's suspensions of prominent journalists were internally labeled "direction of Ella," referring to Ella Irwin, Twitter's Trust and Safety head who has carried out many of Musk's orders.
Anthony Foxx, Obama transpo. secretary who now works for Lyft, tells me they're thinking of how Prop 22 model "can be replicated and scaled" in states across U.S. But Foxx also says they'd like to work w/ labor "lock arms ... and figure this out"
NEW: Large investors ($250M+) have information rights in Musk's Twitter, a group including Saudi, Qatar, and Binance, founded in China — per confidential agreements, though unclear if there are exceptions. U.S. officials weighing legal authority in deal
New: Twitter bans
@metrobusinfo
without explanation. This is an official transit agency feed that posts bus routes, info on detours, delays, for the D.C. region. via
@justingeorge
and me
It's not clear to workers how much goodwill there is, however, after a $200 million ballot campaign to quash a landmark law ushering in labor rights. "This was an outright attack on democracy to buy their way out of a law,” gig worker Chase Copridge said.
With nothing but the clothes on his back and less than $300 in his pocket, this 'pillar of the community' was put on a plane and deported to Jordan after living in the United States for nearly 40 years
New from me: Six Tesla workers allege sexual harassment in Tesla’s factory, seat plant & service centers. One woman said she had to surround her work space w/ boxes to fend off against harassment and management knew. Women said Musk's tweets made it worse
~some personal news~
I’ve managed to finagle my way out of Washington to become the Post’s new tech reporter covering automation and the future of transportation. SF here I come!!
NEW: How Elon Musk's push to make Teslas 'Full Self-Driving' went off course. The system "was only progressing very slowly internally" but "the public wanted a product in their hands," former employee John Bernal told me. "internally, we’re nowhere close"
Attorneys for Walmart unequivocal in their complaint: "Why were multiple Walmart stores located all over the country suddenly catching fire? The answer was obvious and startling: the stores all had Tesla solar panels installed by Tesla on their roofs.”
NEW: Elon Musk's deal to buy Twitter is in serious jeopardy, three people familiar with the discussions say. Musk was unswayed by Twitter's data "firehose," his camp has stopped discussions with at least one likely backer, drastic action could be coming
NTSB docs: Uber's radar detected Elaine Herzberg nearly 6 seconds before she was fatally struck, but “the system design did not include a consideration for jaywalking pedestrians” so it didn't react as if she were a person. via
@mikelaris
Musk souring on & reentering the deal left some unamused. “[It’s] like you bought a new car, you decided you didn’t want it, and then you crash it,” one person said. “And then you’re like ‘I’ll keep it.’”
from
@lizzadwoskin
, me,
@GerritD
,
@jeremybmerrill
@dzennon
nothing spicy, I asked his thoughts on how the Funding secured case had gone (just as the jury had gone to deliberate), and why he’d locked his Twitter account
One prospective investor likened the approach to a private equity takeover, the leveraged buyout that leaves companies gutted. Some expressed concern about Twitter's ability to police its platform without staff. “What’s he gonna replace it with, AI?”
One of the first Tesla Model S Plaid sedans erupted in flames, briefly trapping the driver after the electronic doors malfunctioned, and now attorneys for the owner are calling for Tesla to take the cars off the road. NHTSA is involved
New from me: Elon Musk was irate with federal regulators when they opted to publicly investigate the first fatal crash involving Autopilot, screaming on the phone. It kicked off a whirlwind relationship based on flattery, threats and appeals to his ego
I talked to Jack Sweeney, a Musk fan, right after Musk took over. He didn't think Musk would outright ban him: "I personally think he won’t do it because then the news would be all over it and he would be called a hypocrite."
as it turns out...
Musk said the company won't make money from hateful tweets. But ads from more than three dozen big brands were on accounts of white nationalists including the editor of the neo-nazi Daily Stormer
Twitter neglected to flag them as ineligible for ads
NEW: There were around 450 reported covid-19 cases at Tesla's Fremont plant last year after Elon Musk defiantly reopened the factory, county data shows. I asked Tesla why it remained open in December w/ 125 reported cases. (h/t
@PlainSite
on the data)
NEW: ‘Hit the kill switch’: How Uber used covert tech to thwart government raids around the world. A trove of 124,000 newly released documents show Kalanick's direct involvement in discussions around covert tools to stymie investigators
Musk buying Twitter puts a single person in command of the world's most valuable automaker, the private firm conducting U.S. space launches, and the communications medium used by the world's most powerful people.
“He’s more powerful than countries now."
We should talk about the cultish devotion to a product that'd prompt someone to 1) thank another person's family for how his needless death contributed to software gains 2) Demo his extreme confidence in the software by giving it control w/ his sleeping kid next to him in the car
New: More Tesla owners than ever are reporting sudden braking for imagined hazards, as complaints over “phantom braking” soar to 107 in the past three months — compared to 34 in previous 22 months. NHTSA is in a dialogue with Tesla over the reports.
Some personal news: I'm writing a book! MAXIMUM HUBRIS will dive into Elon Musk's leadership of Tesla and pursuit of Twitter at the peak of his power. I'll unpack the series of decisions that made Musk the world's richest person — and the choices that put everything at risk.
NEW: The final 11 seconds of a fatal Tesla Autopilot crash. The Post reconstructed the moments leading up to a deadly wreck that was set to go to trial this week. It shows how Jeremy Banner’s 2018 Tesla Model 3 barreled toward a semi truck at nearly 70mph
New: Elon Musk no longer joining Twitter’s board: "Elon’s appointment to the board was to become officially effective 4/9, but Elon shared that same morning he will no longer be joining the board. I believe this is for the best," Twitter CEO wrote
The sharing of confidential information about Twitter’s finances — and potentially its users — would be grounds for a review over concerns about Americans’ personal data, security experts said. Revelation comes as officials grapple with potential review
Each large investor has a confidential agreement w/ Musk's team about what company information they'll get. $250M threshold would give Binance, as well as the Saudi & Qatari funds, access to information beyond what's public w/
@JStein_WaPo
and
@josephmenn
New from me: Tesla gave workers permission to stay home rather than risk getting covid-19. Then last week it started handing out termination notices. My latest on the tense situation at Tesla’s Fremont plant
The Elizabeth Holmes case was perhaps the highest-profile test of whether the Silicon Valley ethos — taken to the extreme — could withstand legal scrutiny. "Now she makes history ... as the first Silicon Valley CEO to be convicted of a white-collar crime.”
Uber counsel Tony West had pointed to legal rulings in making this argument. "In fact, several previous rulings have found that drivers’ work is outside the usual course of Uber's business, which is serving as a technology platform for several different types of" marketplaces.
Elon Musk just said he's sleeping on a 7th floor couch in a Twitter library, sparred with a BBC journalist over prevalence of misinfo on Twitter (telling him "You just lied!"), declared his dog is CEO of the company and said "Covid is no longer an issue"
New: Tesla's widespread use of mandatory arbitration is dealt a blow, as judge denies its bid to move sexual harassment suit out of court. "Basically, Barraza was ambushed," judge says, and unknowingly waived her right to a jury trial.
Longtime Oakland council member Larry Reid asks the question: "I just don’t understand why if it’s safe enough for them to offload the passengers into Oakland why isn’t it safe enough for them to offload the passengers in San Francisco?”
New: NTSB says Tesla is NOT a party to its investigation into weekend crash that killed two. That's significant because NTSB has required Tesla's expertise to get into its systems in the past. Tesla is working with NTSB but not as a party to the probe
advantage of bureau life:
when u put a dateline on a story it automatically makes your empty draft look that much more official
Struggling to write a lede in DC:
The
Struggling to write a lede here:
SAN FRANCISCO — The
Metro is considering providing special service for the white nationalist ‘Unite the Right’ rally, to the outrage of its unionized workers “more than 80% of which are people of color,” per
@ATULocal689
#wmata
New from me: A button to request Tesla "Full Self-Driving" is coming as soon as midnight. NTSB chair tells me she's troubled Tesla is adding functionality despite going silent with safety regulators. "They’ve ignored us — they haven’t responded to us.”
NEW: At tense meeting with Boeing executives, pilots fumed about being left in dark on plane software. Further, a federal safety reporting system contains about a dozen reports by pilots expressing exasperation about systems limiting control of 737 MAX.
In a particularly egregious example: Voices of the Civil Rights Movement, a Comcast-NBC led racial justice initiative, was inadertantly advertising on the page of the one-time leader of the Identity Evropa movement
A perhaps-underappreciated aspect of the looming blue check purge: Twitter stores verified users in a database that is notoriously clunky and prone to breaking. In the past, bulk removal of checkmarks has been hard. We will see!
NEW: Elon Musk just issued an ultimatum to Twitter's remaining staff: Commit to a "hardcore" Twitter or accept three months severance. It went out in a midnight email to all staff, and said they have until Thursday at 5p ET to respond or they're laid off
If you work at Twitter, I would love to hear from you. Trying to gauge the internal reaction and better understand how this might play out. My DMs are open if you want to chat. And my Signal is in my bio.
@lizzadwoskin
@GerritD
@WillOremus
also here to lend an ear
wait since we’re on the subject, remember the time my journalism school wanted to kick me out of their DC program for tweeting that my parents are immigrants while I was an immigration reporter
New from me: A Tesla factory worker alleges sexual harassment is rampant in a rare lawsuit. Now other women are stepping forward. Spoke w/ plaintiff and three other current and former employees in this suit who allege “nightmarish conditions”
The person who runs this account, John Bernal, was a driver-assistance test operator at Tesla until he was fired after posting videos of Tesla's Full Self-Driving on YouTube
.
@Tesla
has refused to accept my Tesla Model 3 Long Range at the service center.
I was asked to leave despite having an appointment to receive a Software Update (car isn’t receiving updates)
They claim they will not fix my car
NEW: Elon Musk is already casting doubt on the results of a Twitter poll saying he should step down as CEO. He replied to a tweet thread alleging a "deep state" plot to unleash a bot army swinging the results. Now he's changing the rules on who can vote.
New: Elon Musk may have made $156 million by publicly declaring his stake in Twitter eleven days late, a half dozen legal and securities experts tell
@ReedAlbergotti
. Musk spent days buying stock w/o incurring the 30% premium his investment led to
Stimulus:
-Tesla’s meteoric growth was fueled by $7,500 federal tax rebates for each of its first 200k vehicles sold
-Tesla’s profitability has hinged on hundreds of millions in regulatory credits sold to other carmakers
-Tesla received lucrative tax breaks to build in Austin
Tesla has a strange way of making standard safety features (like traction & stability control) sound super high-tech, merely because you can find them in a Tesla
Tesla stability control systems measure your steering & pedal inputs against each wheel’s available grip, adjusting torque to give you the best traction
Musk cited the jet-tracking account as proof of his commitment to free speech
"My commitment to free speech extends even to not banning the account following my plane"
It's now appended with a community note explaining that the account has been banned
New from me: Two Teslas began burning to the ground one morning last Dec. while a couple slept. They awoke to a blaring car alarm and found the garage in flames. It followed a pattern with older Model S; the fire report cited the thermal management system
Tech stocks doing well today, but none as well as Uber and Lyft, which have surged 15 and 18 percent respectively on news their ballot measure to deny drivers employment passed