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☆ Former Twitter Executives Sue Elon Musk for $128 Million
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-04 | by ( Kate Conger | More About Kate Conger | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Four former Twitter executives sued Elon Musk on Monday, accusing the billionaire of withholding severance payments worth $128 million after he fired them from the company during his 2022 takeover. When Mr. Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion, he fired Parag Agrawal, its chief executive; Ned Segal, its chief financial officer; Vijaya Gadde, its head of legal and policy; and Sean Edgett, its general counsel. Mr. Musk later renamed the company X. In the event of an involuntary termination, Mr. Agrawal was entitled to a so-called golden parachute payment of $60 million, according to a Twitter securities filing. Under those same circumstances, Mr. Segal would receive $46 million and Ms. Gadde $21 million, according to the filing.

Persons: Elon Musk, Musk, Parag Agrawal, Ned Segal, Vijaya Gadde, Sean Edgett, Agrawal, Segal, Gadde Organizations: Twitter, Northern, Northern District of Locations: U.S, Northern District, Northern District of California

Fake, sexually explicit images of Taylor Swift likely generated by artificial intelligence spread rapidly across social media platforms this week, disturbing fans who saw them and reigniting calls from lawmakers to protect women and crack down on the platforms and technology that spread such images. X suspended several accounts that posted the faked images of Ms. Swift, but the images were shared on other social media platforms and continued to spread despite those companies’ efforts to remove them. While X said it was working to remove the images, fans of the pop superstar flooded the platform in protest. They posted related keywords, along with the sentence “Protect Taylor Swift,” in an effort to drown out the explicit images and make them more difficult to find.

Persons: Taylor Swift, X, Swift, Ben Colman Organizations: Twitter

Elon Musk hit out at brands that have pulled their advertising from X after he endorsed an antisemitic conspiracy theory on the social media platform. Mr. Musk apologized for the post at the DealBook Summit in New York on Wednesday, but said that the advertisers were attempting to “blackmail” him. His message for those brands was simple: “Don’t advertise” and used an expletive multiple times to emphasize his point. About 200 big advertisers, including Disney, Apple and IBM, stopped spending on X after Mr. Musk agreed with a post that accused Jewish communities of pushing “hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.” If the freeze continues, it could end up costing the company up to $75 million this quarter, according to internal documents seen by The New York Times. Although Mr. Musk acknowledged that an extended boycott could bankrupt X, he suggested that the public would blame the brands rather than him for its collapse.

Persons: Elon Musk, Musk, ” Organizations: Disney, Apple, IBM, The New York Times Locations: New York

X, the social media company formerly known as Twitter, could lose as much as $75 million in advertising revenue by the end of the year as dozens of major brands pause their marketing campaigns after its owner, Elon Musk, endorsed an antisemitic conspiracy theory this month. They list how much ad revenue X employees fear the company could lose through the end of the year if advertisers do not return. On Friday, X said in a statement that $11 million in revenue was at risk and that the exact figure fluctuated as some advertisers returned to the platform and others increased spending. The company said the numbers viewed by The Times were either outdated or represented an internal exercise to evaluate total risk. X is also running ad campaigns during the holiday period to try to make up for revenue shortfalls.

Persons: Elon Musk, Musk, X, Musk’s, Linda Yaccarino, ” Leesha Anderson, ”, Uber, Jack, Netflix’s, Chris Christie, it’s Elon Musk, Yaccarino, ” X, “, ’, Ms, “ Lean, Tiffany Hsu Organizations: The New York Times, IBM, Apple, Disney, X, Microsoft, The Times, Twitter, Netflix, Google, NBC Universal, NBC, Press, Republican, Media, National Football League, New York Times, Athletic Locations: ”, Gaza, Israel

X, the social media service formerly known as Twitter, sued Media Matters in federal court on Monday after the advocacy organization published research showing that ads on X appeared next to antisemitic content. A post last week from Elon Musk that endorsed an antisemitic conspiracy theory, which he wrote a day before the Media Matters research was published, kicked off an advertiser exodus, with major brands like IBM, Apple, Warner Bros. X has rejected Media Matters’ findings, saying they were not representative of a regular user’s experience on the platform. On Friday, Mr. Musk promised a “thermonuclear lawsuit” against Media Matters and its backers. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, claims that Media Matters tried to damage X’s relationships with advertisers.

Persons: Elon Musk, Musk, ’, X Organizations: Twitter, Media, Elon, IBM, Apple, Warner Bros . Discovery, Sony, Media Matters, Northern, Northern District of, “ Locations: U.S, Northern District, Northern District of Texas

More major advertisers have paused their spending on X, the social media service formerly known as Twitter, as the backlash continued over Elon Musk’s endorsement of an antisemitic conspiracy theory on X. The spending freeze comes as X has fought to win back advertisers who were wary of spending on the platform after Mr. Musk took it over a year ago and said he would loosen content moderation rules. The organization followed accounts that posted the content, then refreshed the X timeline until ads appeared, X said in a blog post. Only one of the nine posts highlighted by Media Matters violated its content moderation rules, X added. “Musk admitted the ads at issue ran alongside the pro-Nazi content we identified.

Persons: X, Musk, ” Mr, Robert Bowers, Andrew Bates, Hitler, ” X, Joe Benarroch, ”, Angelo Carusone, “ Musk, ” Ryan Mac Organizations: Elon, Warner Bros, Sony, IBM, Apple, Lionsgate, Paramount Global, CBS, Twitter, White, Media Matters, Nazi Party, X Corp, Media, “, ” Media Locations: Israel, Pittsburgh

☆ How Elon Musk Changed the Meaning of Twitter for Users
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-27 | by ( Kate Conger | More About Kate Conger | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

After Nicholas Campiz evacuated from Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, in February 2022, he stayed glued to Twitter. “As more Ukrainians hopped onto Twitter to tell their story, you had a lot of good accounts from them,” Mr. Campiz said. When war broke out this month in Israel and Gaza, Mr. Campiz, 40, a cartographer who now lives in Florida, turned to Twitter again. With the war in Ukraine, “Twitter was invaluable because you were able to get connected to accounts that were providing good information,” he said. “I feel really helpless in this Israel-Gaza thing because on Twitter now, the ability to do that is just gone.”

Persons: Nicholas Campiz, ” Mr, Campiz, ”, “ Organizations: Twitter Locations: Kyiv, Ukraine’s, Tbilisi , Georgia, Israel, Gaza, Florida, Ukraine

☆ Trump Returns to the Service Formerly Known as Twitter
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-24 | by ( Kate Conger | More About Kate Conger | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Former President Donald J. Trump returned to X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, on Thursday night after a hiatus of more than two years. Mr. Trump posted a link to his website and a photo of his mug shot in his first new post on X since Twitter banned his account after the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. “Never surrender!” the caption under the mug shot read. Mr. Trump returned to X one day after the airing of an interview he gave to Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host, who now streams his talk shows on the service. When Twitter barred Mr. Trump, the company said he had glorified violence with his posts on the platform, encouraging his supporters to storm the Capitol.

Persons: Donald J, Trump, “, Tucker Carlson, Elon Musk, ”, Mr Organizations: Twitter, U.S, Capitol, Fox News

☆ X Slows Down Access to Some Rival Sites
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-15 | by ( Kate Conger | More About Kate Conger | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

X, the social media service formerly known as Twitter, slowed down access from its platform to rival sites such as Substack and Facebook, but on Tuesday began reversing an effort to restrict its users from quickly viewing news sites, according to a New York Times analysis. The slowness, known in tech parlance as “throttling,” initially affected rival social networks including Facebook, Bluesky and Instagram, as well as the newsletter site Substack and news outlets including Reuters and The New York Times, according to The Times’s analysis. The delay to load links from X was relatively minor — about 4.5 seconds — but still noticeable, according to the analysis. By Tuesday afternoon, the delay to reaching the news sites appeared to have lifted, according to The Times’s analysis. X did not comment on the throttling, which was first noticed by users.

Persons: Elon Musk Organizations: Twitter, Facebook, New York Times, Reuters, The New York Times, Washington Post

☆ So What Do We Call Twitter Now Anyway?
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-03 | by ( Kate Conger | More About Kate Conger | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The bewilderment stems from Mr. Musk’s move last month to rebrand Twitter, which he owns, as X. The rebranding has been hair-raising for Twitter fans, who embraced the company’s iconic blue-and-white bird logo and used a bird-related lexicon when talking about the platform. A tweet referred to a post; tweeting was a verb for posting, and sharing another person’s post was known as retweeting. Some people have wondered if the X name will stick, especially with the word tweets still appearing on the site. The app’s home button is also still shaped like a birdhouse, and the company’s website — at least for now — remains Twitter.com.

Persons: Elon Musk, Musk’s, Snapchat, tweeting, — Organizations: Twitter, Facebook, Meta

☆ How Elon Musk Is Changing the Twitter Experience
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-07 | by ( Kate Conger | More About Kate Conger | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Elon Musk has declared he wants to transform Twitter into an all-inclusive app that people can use for payments, news and food orders. “Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app,” Mr. Musk posted in October, weeks before completing a $44 billion acquisition of the social network. He later said Twitter could be like WeChat, the popular Chinese app that combines social media, instant messaging and payment services. But nearly six months after Mr. Musk took over Twitter, his ambitions for the platform have remained mostly that — ambitions. Although the billionaire has made dozens of tweaks to Twitter, they have largely been cosmetic.

Persons: Elon Musk, Mr, Musk, Jane Manchun Wong Organizations: Twitter

SAN FRANCISCO — Elon Musk had a demand. On Oct. 28, hours after completing his $44 billion buyout of Twitter the night before, Mr. Musk gathered several human-resource executives in a “war room” in the company’s offices in San Francisco. But Mr. Musk’s team said he was used to going to court and paying penalties, and was not worried about the risks. Two days later, Mr. Musk learned exactly how costly those potential fines and lawsuits could be, three people said. The order for immediate layoffs, the ensuing panic and the about-face reflect the chaos that has engulfed Twitter since Mr. Musk took over the company two weeks ago.

Persons: Elon Musk, Musk, Musk’s Organizations: FRANCISCO, Twitter Locations: San Francisco

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