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Elizabeth Lopatto

Elizabeth Lopatto

Senior Reporter

Senior Reporter

    More From Elizabeth Lopatto

    Elon Musk’s Twitter deal could tank the leveraged buyout marketElon Musk’s Twitter deal could tank the leveraged buyout market
    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Elizabeth Lopatto
    A federal official held more than $1 million of Amazon stock while crafting trade policy.

    The law that was supposed to prevent him from doing that is rarely enforced:

    more than 2,600 federal officials invested in companies that stood to benefit from their agencies’ work from 2016 through 2021. The Journal reviewed annual financial disclosure reports filed for those years by about 12,000 senior executive-branch officials at 50 federal agencies, from career employees to political staff to presidential appointees.

    It’s not just Amazon. Other tech companies’ stocks involved included Palantir Technologies, held by an ambassador, as well as Apple and Facebook, held by a Treasury Department official.

    The $1 Million Amazon Conflict: Washington’s Ethics Czars Struggle to Enforce Stock-Trading Laws

    [WSJ]

    What on earth is going on with Elon Musk and Ukraine?What on earth is going on with Elon Musk and Ukraine?
    Elon Musk reportedly wants to fire most of Twitter’s employeesElon Musk reportedly wants to fire most of Twitter’s employees
    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Elizabeth Lopatto
    It’s spooky season!

    What is the difference between spooky versus scary, and how do you design that experience? I loved this essay, which uses examples from the set of Hocus Pocus and haunted houses, to think a little more about the difference:

    Unsurprisingly, McHale told me that he finds comfort in spookiness, for the way it lets us think about life and death at the same time. It allows us to play with those ideas, as Clasen would say. “If it goes too far, you’re confronted with things you don’t want to deal with, but if it’s just enough, it’s a comfort,” McHale said. “If it’s lightly spooky, it’s almost a whimsical reminder of what life is about.”

    Dirt: On Spookiness

    [dirt.substack.com]

    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Twitter is freezing its employees’ equity awards.

    This week was supposed to be the trial for Twitter v Musk, but there’s been a pause in the case to let the deal close. The deadline for closing is October 28th. Looks like Twitter thinks he’s serious this time!

    Twitter Locks Employee Stock Accounts in ‘Anticipation’ of Musk Deal (TWTR)

    [Bloomberg.com]

    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Do Kwon is once again insisting, despite the existence of an Interpol red notice, that he is not on the run.

    “Since the end of last year, I haven’t been living in South Korea, so it wouldn’t be accurate to say ‘returning to South Korea’” to face the music, the noted crypto villain tells Laura Shin.

    He says he hasn’t seen a copy of the warrant for his arrest. He still won’t say where he is (for “personal security” reasons), and, of the charges against him, says, “we are a little bit disappointed in the way that prosecutors are attempting to create new regulation through criminal enforcement proceedings.”

    Do Kwon of Terra: 'It Was Never Really About Money or Fame or Success' - Ep. 408

    [YouTube]

    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Elizabeth Lopatto
    You ever read a court filing and just think “headline bait?”

    So Twitter has filed a motion to compel production of documents, which begins “Elon Musk is presently under investigation by federal authorities for his conduct in connection with the acquisition of Twitter. “ The motion doesn’t say which authorities, or what “under investigation” means in this context, which seems like it covers a wide range of severity? Anyway you can read the documents for yourself but... odd.

    Bloomberg notes that the SEC sent Musk a letter earlier this year about how he’d disclosed his stake in Twitter (weirdly using a schedule 13G, which suggests he didn’t plan to be an activist, and also a little late).

    Upload of Twitter’s legal filing

    [DocumentCloud]

    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Elon Musk’s Twitter investors have cold feet, too.

    Around $7 billion of the money Musk is buying Twitter with comes from VC funds and other (wealthy) entities that committed earlier this year. But now that the deal is back on?

    “We’re all trying to get out of it, to be honest,” said Andrea Walne, a general partner at Manhattan Venture Partners.

    MVP committed to invest in the deal earlier this year, but a question remains as to whether the firm and others will actually be on the hook for the full amount they committed to, according to Walne. “We talked to the other investors, everyone’s trying to get out of it, no one thinks the company should be valued at $44 billion,” she said.

    One of the investors that agreed to back Elon Musk's Twitter bid says they want out of the deal

    [Business Insider]

    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Forget AI prompts, the real money is in writing tweets for VCs.

    I feel like such a dummy, thinking writing was about making sense of the world and like, “personal expression,” whatever that is. Please pay me $100,000 to do a thinkfluencer tweet thread! I would like to own an Eames chair one day.

    I made $200,000 last year ghostwriting tweets for superstar VCs. It takes me 5 hours a week. Here's how I found my clients and built a booming side hustle from scratch.

    [Business Insider]

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