Have nothing to do with the [evil] things that people do, things that belong to the darkness. Instead, bring them out to the light... [For] when all things are brought out into the light, then their true nature is clearly revealed...

-Ephesians 5:11-13

Category Archives: Technology

Twitter Sues Musk, Asks for “Expedited” Court Date for Trial

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, July 13, 2022:  

Social networking site Twitter sued Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Tuesday, claiming breach of contract. Musk offered to buy the site in April for $46.5 billion, subject to disclosures about how many advertising “bots” (robots) make up the site’s 200 million-plus users.

Last week Musk reneged on the deal, claiming that Twitter failed to provide him with sufficient proof that those “bots” make up less than five percent of its users, as the company has consistently claimed.

The lawsuit gave this summary:

In April 2022, Elon Musk entered into a binding merger agreement with Twitter, promising to use his best efforts to get the deal done.

 

Now, less than three months later, Musk refuses to honor his obligations to Twitter and its stockholders because the deal he signed no longer serves his personal interests.

 

Having mounted a public spectacle to put Twitter in play, and having proposed and then signed a seller-friendly merger agreement, Musk apparently believes that he — unlike every other party subject to Delaware contract law — is free to change his mind, trash the company, disrupt its operations, destroy stockholder value, and walk away.

 

This repudiation follows a long list of material contractual breaches by Musk that have cast a pall over Twitter and its business.

 

Twitter brings this action to enjoin Musk from further breaches, to compel Musk to fulfill his legal obligations, and to compel consummation of the merger upon satisfaction of the few outstanding conditions.

In covering the developing story yesterday, The New American quoted attorney Matt Levine, who suggested there were only two likely outcomes from such a lawsuit: 1) the Delaware court rules for Twitter, forcing Musk to pay the $1 billion termination fee plus Twitter’s legal fees, or 2) the court forces Musk to go through with the deal, buying the 800 million shares outstanding at $54.20 per share.

At the close of business on Tuesday, Twitter traded at a little over $34 per share.

However, there is a least one other option: that Musk will use Twitter’s lawsuit as a negotiating tool to obtain a lower price.

Here’s the reasoning: Twitter claims it has given Musk all the information he demanded in the purchase agreement concerning those pesky advertising bots. For years the company has reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that they represent “less than five percent” of the 200 million users currently present on the site, along with a disclaimer that that number is only a rough estimate, subject to change.

But, as Musk’s lawyer noted on Friday, Twitter itself is “in material breach of multiple provisions” of the purchase agreement.

Twitter has requested an “expedited” trial date for September:

Expedition is essential to permit Twitter to secure the benefit of its bargain, to address Musk’s continuing breaches, and to protect Twitter and its stockholders from the continuing market risk and operational harm resulting from Musk’s attempt to bully his way out of an airtight merger agreement.

Part of the discovery process in that trial (if it happens) will finally reveal what percentage those “bots” make up of the Twitter universe. Musk is persuaded that it’s much higher than Twitter claims, perhaps as many as one in every five users.

If that proves to be the case, this opens a Pandora’s box for Twitter. It could be accused of defrauding its advertisers, making false statements to the SEC, and exposing the company’s board of directors to charges they breached their fiduciary duty to protect the interests of the company’s stockholders.

This would exacerbate the company’s declining stock price, putting the present offer by Musk even further out of reach.

Since there are no other suitors interested in purchasing Twitter, the board would be pressed to renegotiate a lower price with Musk.

Elon Musk Offers to Buy Twitter for $41 Billion and Take It Private

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, April 14, 2022:  

Elon Musk, founder of Tesla and SpaceX and the richest man in the world, filed his intent to purchase Twitter with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Wednesday and take it private.

In his filing he included the text message he sent to Twitter board chairman Bret Taylor a day earlier, informing him of his intent to formally offer to buy the company:

As I indicated this weekend, I believe that the company should be private to go through the changes that need to be made.

 

After the past several days of thinking this over, I have decided I want to acquire the company and take it private.

 

I am going to send you an offer letter tonight; it will be public in the morning.

 

Are you available to chat?

Musk included part of that “chat” in the filing:

Best and Final:

 

a.      I am not playing the back-and-forth game.

 

b.      I have moved straight to the end.

 

c.      It’s a high price and your shareholders will love it.

 

d.      If the deal doesn’t work, given that I don’t have confidence in management nor do I believe I can drive the necessary change in the public market, I would need to reconsider my position as a shareholder.

 

i.       This is not a threat, it’s simply not a good investment without the changes that need to be made.

 

ii.      And those changes won’t happen without taking the company private.

In the letter that followed, Musk reiterated his position that the only way Twitter could “thrive” in the future would be to take it private and let him run it:

To Bret Taylor, chairman of the Board:

 

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.

Musk has more than 80 million followers on Twitter and started buying chunks of its stock in January. He considered his options, asking his followers what he should do. A primary question he asked was, “Given that Twitter serves as the de facto public square, failing to adhere to free speech principles fundamentally undermines democracy, what should be done?”

He conducted a poll of his followers: “Free speech is essential to a functioning democracy. Do you believe Twitter rigorously adheres to this principle?” He got two million responses, and 70 percent of them said “no.”

Initially, the president of Twitter, learning that Musk had purchased nearly 10 percent of his company’s outstanding shares, offered him a seat on the board. But Musk turned it down after learning that, as a board member, he couldn’t purchase more than 15 percent of the company, and would have only marginal influence on the direction of the company.

After visiting with the president of Twitter, Parag Agrawal, Musk knew what he had to do. If the board approves, Musk will invest an estimated 15 percent of his approximately $265 billion net worth in his new venture.

He has plans. He will turn Twitter into a subscriber-based platform and away from currently being dependent upon corporate advertising (and corporate influence) to pay the bills. Wrote Musk: “Everyone who signs up for Twitter Blue ($3 a month) should get an authentication checkmark. And no ads. The power of corporations to dictate policy [to Twitter] is greatly enhanced if Twitter depends on advertising money to survive.”

He would likely change the operational structure of the company, including selling its headquarters in San Francisco, “since,” as he Tweeted, “no one shows up there anyway.”

Conservatives were delighted with the news. Firebrand Republican Representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado tweeted last week: “Now that Elon Musk is Twitter’s largest shareholder, it’s time to lift the political censorship. Oh … and BRING BACK TRUMP!”

They are likely to be disappointed to learn that the former president has no plans to rejoin Twitter even if he were invited back. He told American Media on Wednesday, “I probably wouldn’t have any interest [in returning to Twitter if Musk bought the company]. Twitter’s become very boring. They’ve gotten rid of a lot of good [conservative] voices.”

Besides, Trump has invested heavily in his own social-media platform, Truth Social.

It’s premature to speculate on what impact Musk might have on the “public square” conversation if he does buy the company. There could be resistance from the Biden administration, with lawsuits complaining about his move to purchase the company. The board could turn down his offer. There could be counter offers from media giants to quash Musk’s move.

Under current management, Twitter wouldn’t invite Trump back. A Twitter spokesman said, “We have no plans to reverse any policy decisions.” Ned Segal, Twitter’s present chief financial officer, told CNBC: “When you’re removed from the platform, you’re removed from the platform, whether you are a commentator, a CFO, or you are a former public official.”

Regulators are now going after the Bitcoin

This article was first published at the McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Wednesday, November 20th, 2013:

 

Six federal agencies were invited to a Senate committee hearing on Monday to explain why each should be granted the privilege of regulating the Bitcoin. Four showed up:

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If Trump Loses in November, Blame Google and Facebook?

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, February 26, 2020: 

Professor Robert Epstein warned in the Epoch Times on Monday that Google and Facebook have perfected algorithms that could limit the Trump presidency to a single term come November.

Epstein, a senior research psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology, knows whereof he speaks and writes. He is the former editor of Psychology Today and has authored over a dozen books and more than 300 articles on the influence of the Internet on peoples’ thinking. He wrote, “Google-and-the-Gang are now controlling a wide variety of subliminal methods of persuasion that can, in minutes, shift the voting preferences of 20 percent or more of undecided voters without anyone having the slightest idea they’ve been manipulated.”

One can have millions of dollars to fund political campaigns and still lose the election, wrote Epstein: “All that matters now is who has the power to decide what content people will see — or not see (censorship) — and what order that content is presented in.” He added, “That power is almost entirely in the hands of the arrogant executives at two U.S. companies. Their algorithms decide which content gets suppressed, the order in which content is shown, and which content goes viral.”

And that power is astonishing in its breadth and depth, says Epstein:

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The Resurrection of Ford’s Bronco Illustrates How Capitalism Works

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Wednesday, May 22, 2019: 

Ford’s announcement of its resurrected Bronco for 2020 shows pictures of steep technical trails heading off into the woods while calling it a “no-compromise midsize 4×4 utility for the thrill seekers who want freedom and off-road functionality, with the space and versatility of an SUV. It’s capable of conquering everything from your daily commute to gravel roads and boulders.” (See Sources below)

This is how capitalism works.

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Robotics Revolution Rolls On: Amazon Now Using Robots to Pack Shipping Boxes

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Tuesday, May 14, 2019: 

Amazon is quietly installing machines called CartonWraps and SmartPacs in its never-ending quest to serve its customers more quickly at lower cost. In busy warehouses serving Seattle, Frankfurt, Milan, Amsterdam, and Manchester, the company is taking the tiring work employees were doing — each spending up to 10 hours a day taking products and building shipping boxes to fit them for shipping — and giving it to robots.

The robots work four times faster than humans

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If Forstchen is Right, Why is the US Navy Provoking China?

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Monday, January 28, 2019:  

When William Forstchen’s novel One Second After was published in April 2011, it was cited on the floor of Congress as a book that Americans should read. Enough of them did that it made it onto the New York Times’  bestseller list that year.

This was not your typical apocalyptic, End-of-Western-Civilization-As-We-Know-It novel. First, the author knew what he was talking and writing about. He holds a Ph.D. in history from Purdue with specializations in military history, the Civil War, and the history of technology.

Second, he provided endnotes that backed up his thesis that formed the basis for his novel. He quoted from the 2004 report issued by the “Congressional Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack”:

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Could U.S. Warships in Taiwan Strait Trigger an EMP Attack?

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Sunday, January 27, 2019:  

When two U.S. Navy warships sailed through the Taiwan Strait on Thursday, a Navy spokesman said it was only “routine.” Besides, added U.S. Pacific Fleet spokesman Lt. Commander Tim Gorman, the operation was “in accordance with international law.” It “demonstrates the US commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific,” he added, explaining that “the US Navy will continue to fly, sail and operate anywhere international law allows.”

China has challenged that assessment for years, claiming that it has sovereignty over the island and that Taiwan’s status as a separate Republic of China isn’t legitimate. Accordingly, China sent several military jets near the southern tip of the island late Thursday to make the point.

When the Navy sent two “surface combatants” through the Strait in October and then again in November, China responded by sending multiple warships of its own into the area.

The only thing more dangerous than arrogance on the part of the U.S. Navy is the ignorance of just how China could turn off the lights in America if it wanted to retaliate with prejudice.

As far back as 1996, the communist Chinese government knew that the United States was vulnerable to a nuclear Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) set off in the atmosphere above the country. An article published by the Peoples’ Liberation Army (PLA) — China’s military arm — exposed that vulnerability:

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VW Expanding its Chattanooga Plant Again, Investing a Billion Dollars and Creating Jobs

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, January, 16, 2019:  

Following the announcement that Volkswagen America was going to be expanding its Chattanooga plant to build electric vehicles (EVs), President Trump was delighted. He tweeted: “Congratulations to Chattanooga and Tennessee on a job well done. A big win.”

It was a big win for the president, who invited the CEOs of VW, BMW, and other foreign car manufacturers to the White House in December to persuade them to invest more in the United States. At the same time VW made its announcement at the Detroit Auto Show on Monday, BMW management announced its own expansion plans of its production facilities in the United States. With VW’s financial commitment of $800 million for Tennessee and BMW’s financial commitment of $600 million added to the $340 million VW announced last March for its Chattanooga facility, those two automakers are investing almost $2 billion in their U.S. automobile manufacturing plants. Their expansion plans will require more than 2,000 additional workers, adding to the already robust manufacturing resurgence taking place in the United States.

That resurgence has added nearly 500,000 manufacturing jobs in just the last two years, the most in more than 20 years.

Following the announcement by VW’s CEO Herbert Diess, CEO of Volkswagen AG, his American counterpart, Scott Keogh, CEO of Volkswagen Group of America, added, “We could not be prouder to build the future of mobility here in the United States. We’re known as ‘the peoples’ car’ for a reason, and we plan to build EVs for millions, not millionaires.”

What Keogh didn’t say was that

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Downloads of 3D-Printed Firearms Increase After Judge Tries to Stop Them

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, December 26, 2018: 

A federal judge’s ruling to limit the transfer of files allowing citizens to print their own guns using 3-D technology has resulted in exactly the opposite: The number of downloads of those files has exploded since his ruling in August.

It was Western Washington’s District Court Judge Robert Lasnik who ordered the settlement between the Justice Department and Cody Wilson’s company Defense Distributed to be suspended. He should have known better. He and other gun-grabbers such as New Jersey Governor Chris Murphy and Massachusetts Democrat Edward Markey are trying to play catch-up and instead are falling farther and farther behind.

It isn’t that gun grabbers haven’t tried.

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Think Amazon’s “Fulfillment Centers” are High Tech? Try Blimps and Drones!

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Friday, October 19, 2018: 

Over the last two or three years, tens of thousands of people have watched YouTube videos (see Sources) of the unbelievable technology that companies like Amazon and British online grocery company Ocado are using to cut delivery costs and times for their customers. Each of Amazon’s “fulfillment centers” ships upwards of a million orders every single day, with nary a human in sight.

Give Amazon credit. It saw the technology it would need as far back as 2012 when they bought Kiva Systems, the developer of the little Kiva robots that look like oversized Roombas. Kiva was leasing their robots and their technology to companies like The Gap, Walgreens, Staples, Office Depot, Crate & Barrel, and Saks 5th Avenue. But when those leases ended, Amazon didn’t renew them. It wanted the Kiva technology for itself.

Today, in its more than 100 massive distribution or “fulfillment” centers, there are hundreds of thousands of Kiva robots doing the work humans used to do just a few years ago.

The million-square-foot fulfillment center in Baltimore is typical, as Christopher Mims explained in The Wall Street Journal:

Keep reading…

Amazon Robotics Is Automating Everything

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, October 18, 2018:  

When Amazon, the largest Internet retailer in the world, purchased Kiva Systems in 2012, it paid almost a billion dollars for it; and it transformed, and continues to transform, the company. Amazon wanted the technology behind the Kiva robots that were previously being used by The Gap, Walgreens, Staples, Office Depot, Crate & Barrel, and Saks 5th Avenue. When the contracts with those companies ran out Amazon didn’t renew them.

It wanted Kiva’s technology for itself.

Today, in its more than 100 massive distribution or “fulfillment” centers, there are hundreds of thousands of Kiva robots doing the work humans used to do just a few years ago. There are YouTube videos depicting this transformation from human “pickers” to robotic pickers.

The million-square-foot fulfillment center in Baltimore is typical, as Christopher Mims explained in the Wall Street Journal:

Keep reading…

Trump’s 36-Year-Old Son-in-Law Won the White House for Him

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Wednesday, January 11, 2017:

Jared Kushner’s father-in-law, Donald Trump, gave him an early birthday present, naming him to his new administration as a senior advisor on Monday. The next day Kushner turned 36.

Married to Trump’s daughter Ivanka (shown), Kushner responded to the “all hands on deck” message following Trump’s nomination at the Republican National Convention last summer. Kushner dropped everything and started building a national political campaign from scratch. Blessed with precious little political experience, but with smarts (degrees from Harvard and New York University), Kushner saw the problem: no staff, no money, no experience, no strategy, no nothing. So he called on some of his contacts in social networking, asking for referrals to the brightest and the best to help.

He found Brad Parscale, a web designer in San Antonio, and built a team of 100 people around him. Calling the team “Project Alamo,” the two learned the ropes quickly: traditional TV, radio, and print advertising were 1) expensive, and 2) not very effective in reaching the people Trump needed to win. Instead, through trial and error, Kushner spent less and less on TV and radio and focused on the social networking tools Facebook and Twitter. Said Kushner:

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Beware the 300-Pound White Penguin Watching You at the Mall

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Monday, September 5, 2016:  

Cover of "Nineteen Eighty-Four"

In George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, Big Brother’s primary enabler was the telescreen. It could be turned down but never turned off, and it recorded all behaviors and conversations to be analyzed for traitorous intent.

Knightscope has no discoverable link to the telescreen with its big, fat white Penguin called K5, but its capabilities are astonishing. Those capabilities came to light following an incident at an upscale mall in Palo Alto last month when a K5 ran over a 16-month-old toddler by mistake. Company officials expressed “horror” at the incident, apologized, and then invited the family of the toddler to view its upgraded version of K5, which, it promised, would avoid such incidents in the future.

The rollout of K5 (version 2.0, if you will) was no doubt impressive, as K5 has an amazing array of technology designed as “an advanced anomaly detection device” – read: detect, record, analyze, and then inform its handler of suspicious activities taking place nearby. Stacy Dean Stephens, Knightscope’s vice president of marketing told Digital Trends:

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Knightscope Robots: Enhanced Safety or More Invasive Surveillance?

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, September 5, 2016:  

NXT Robot

Not a Knightscope robot, but close

Knightscope robots — one for inside work, the other for outdoors — have been under development for three years, and have logged 35,000 hours of testing and 25,000 miles of rolling through malls, parking lots, and manufacturing facilities. And yet, within weeks of the K5 outdoor model being released in the Stanford Shopping Center, an upscale shopping mall in Palo Alto, California, one of them couldn’t avoid hitting a 16-month-old toddler and running over his foot.

It was a poor start to Knightscope’s first major public contract with the mall, and they did the best they could to ameliorate the situation:

Keep reading…

CEO Resigns From Obama’s Entrepreneur Board

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, August 8, 2016:  

When Elizabeth Holmes (above), the 32-year-old CEO of medical technology startup Theranos, was named as one of President Obama’s presidential ambassadors for global entrepreneurship (PAGE) last year, she sounded like the winner of a beauty contest, telling her audience how she was going to save the world:

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Russia Wants to Fly Over the U.S. Using Its Latest Spy Technology

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, February 22, 2016:  

Russian Air Force Tupolev Tu-214ON which will ...

Russian Air Force Tupolev Tu-214ON

According to the Associated Press, Russia is about to ask permission of the Open Skies Consultative Commission (OSCC) in Vienna, Austria, to fly its latest reconnaissance aircraft, the Tu-214ON (left), over the United States. The airplane will have the latest in spy technology, including

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Rubio’s Donors Reveal His Support of a Different Agenda

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, November 6, 2015:  

With the recent revelation that Senator Marco Rubio has been receiving, and is actively soliciting, funds from billionaires with vastly different agendas from those voters who elected him in 2010, many are questioning how he would act if he were elected president.

With the departure of Scott Walker from the Republican cast of candidates seeking their party’s nomination, and with the virtual disappearance of a presence in the polls by establishment candidate Jeb Bush, it was no surprise that Rubio’s star began its ascendancy. As Paul Singer, one of Rubio’s wealthy donors, wrote, Rubio

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Walmart’s Stock’s Selloff Hinges on Perceived Economic Gloom

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, October 15, 2015:  

English: Inside the Walmart (still branded as ...

Inside the Walmart at West Plains, Missouri.

Within minutes of Walmart’s announcement  on Wednesday that the world’s largest retailer would see its profits drop between six and 12 percent next year, the company’s stock started a decline that only ended after it had lost 10 percent of its value, its worst single-day performance in 37 years.

Despite a previous warning from Walmart in August that its quarterly profits, year-over-year, would likely fall by 15 percent, and despite the company’s stock continuing its decline from $90 a share in January to $67 before the announcement, investors were caught off guard. Now trading below $60 a share, investors have seen the value of their Walmart holdings drop

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Oil Price Rebound Not Likely to Last, Says the IEA

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Wednesday, October 14, 2015: 

Since early August the price of crude has jumped almost 20 percent, moving some, including those in OPEC’s cartel, to conclude that its strategy is working: Flood the market to force prices so low that marginal producers, especially in the United States, will go out of business. With the resultant decrease in supply, prices will rebound, hopefully to levels where the cartel’s countries can continue to fund their welfare/warfare states.

Said the cartel last week:

Keep reading…

Many of the articles on Light from the Right first appeared on either The New American or the McAlvany Intelligence Advisor.
Copyright © 2021 Bob Adelmann