This Week in Elon | The Verge

A brief history of Elon Musk sabotaging Matt Levine’s time off

2024-03-01T13:51:48-05:00

“My life has not been ruined by having to write about Elon Musk on Saturdays.” | Image: Laura Normand / The Verge

This story, originally published October 28th, 2022, and updated July 11th, 2023, has been updated again because, well, you are never going to guess what happened.

Matt Levine would like you to know that Elon Musk does not actually ruin all of his vacations. Sure, he was at Sesame Place, the theme park just outside Philadelphia, with his kids when Musk announced his Twitter bid, and then stayed up until midnight that night to get his newsletter, Money Stuff, out. But that was kind of fun! "My life has not been ruined by having to write about Elon Musk on Saturdays," the former mergers and acquisitions lawyer told me. And in M&A, everything …

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Elon Musk is Elon Musk-pilled

2022-12-02T07:00:00-05:00

[cash register noise] | Illustration by Laura Normand / The Verge

Programming note: This will be the last This Week in Elon this year. In 2023, I will return with something delightful for you that is not just about Musk shenanigans - but we will have occasional chats when there is too much Elonning going on.

Generally, I don't think rich people believe anything besides: (1) they are basically good; (2) they deserve their money and no one should take it; and (3) anything that threatens ideas (1) and (2) is bad. Everything else is pretty flexible.

At this point, I think if Texas governor Greg Abbott called Musk and told him to jump, Musk would say, "How high?"

I am giving you my priors here because I am ab …

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Can Elon Musk turn Twitter into an ‘everything app’?

2022-11-18T07:00:00-05:00

“The Man Who Knew Nothing About Risk” | Illustration by Laura Normand / The Verge

Okay, so last week we talked about the cratering ad revenue on Twitter, and then, just after I published, another major ad agency paused Twitter spending. But I wrote last week's column to tee up the thing I actually want to talk about: the long-term plan to make Twitter less dependent on advertising.

On October 29th, Musk pal Jason Calacanis said on his podcast, All-In, "There's no doubt that, I think, Elon can turn this around pretty quickly and make it massively profitable." Even when he said it, it wasn't quite true. Elon Musk already had a foray in media: the notable failure Thud, which apparently never had a plan to be profitable. Aft …

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Elon Musk learns the hard way that being a Twitter troll is way more fun than being a mod

2022-11-11T07:00:00-05:00

How many billions can users troll him out of? | Illustration by Laura Normand / The Verge

I honestly did not think chaos would engulf Twitter so quickly, but I must admit: this rules. This owns so hard. Awoooou (wolf howl), Twitter is good again. We're no longer locked in here with Elon Musk - Elon Musk has locked himself in here with us.

Musk took control of Twitter on October 27th. Since then:

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What on earth is going on with Elon Musk and Ukraine?

2022-10-21T08:00:00-04:00

Who’s whispering in Elon Musk’s ear? | Illustration by Lille Allen / The Verge

Look, I've been avoiding talking about Elon Musk's meddling in international affairs largely because I am not expert enough in international affairs to say much of anything. But now we've got Fiona Hill, formerly an advisor to Donald Trump who gave testimony at his first impeachment hearing, out here suggesting that Musk is "transmitting a message for Putin."

This shit's weird, dude, even for me. Musk set off an international shitposting incident by tweeting a peace proposal for the war in Ukraine. In response, sitting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy polled Twitter about whether users preferred a pro-Russia or pro-Ukraine Musk; sitt …

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Elon Musk is buying Twitter, probably?

2022-10-07T08:00:00-04:00

Okay. So it looks like I don't need to go to Delaware this October. There's a stay in Elon Musk's lawsuit against Twitter - which is meant to give the parties time to close the deal. If the deal doesn't close, the court case is back on for November.

What a year this week has been! On October 4th, Musk filed a nice letter with the SEC saying that, actually, he did intend to do the Twitter deal, and he did intend to do it at $54.20 a share - just as long as the court proceedings stopped. Coincidentally I'm sure, Musk's twice-delayed deposition was to take place October 6th.

"Yes, we also think Elon Musk should buy us for $54.20 a share in the …

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How Elon Musk, Jack Dorsey, and Parag Agrawal cratered the Twitter deal, in texts

2022-09-29T20:30:00-04:00

Elon Musk's deposition for the Twitter v. Musk suit may have been rescheduled for next week, but the public got some more inside dirt about his plans for Twitter, thanks to the release of two slideshow presentations and a slew of Musk texts.

The texts show Musk and a variety of contacts - including former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, entrepreneur Jason Calacanis, and podcaster Joe Rogan - talking about everything from the blockchain to putting Oprah on Twitter's board. (That part might be a joke, but with Musk, it's difficult to tell.) But above all, they're a chronicle of the deal's slow implosion.

Twitter "never should have been a company."

T …

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Elon Musk has an actual free speech issue on his hands

2022-09-23T10:19:24-04:00

It's been five months since Elon Musk agreed to buy Twitter, so it's easy to forget that, in those first heady days, this was all supposed to be about free speech. We're long past that now. But Musk showed at least a glimmer of interest in it again this week, albeit in a completely different piece of his empire: the Starlink internet satellites.

Since its October trial is fast approaching, let's talk about the Twitter case first. After failing to delay the trial but successfully adding a slew of new claims to it, Musk is preparing (or not, who knows!) to answer Twitter's questions in a deposition scheduled for September 26th and 27th. The C …

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Elon Musk made his bid, and now he might actually have to lie in it

2022-09-16T08:00:00-04:00

Twitter’s lawyers are being too mean to Elon Musk, say Elon Musk’s lawyers :( | Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images

Well, Twitter shareholders have approved Elon Musk's Twitter dot com acquisition, so that's nice. Musk has, at this point, sent several letters trying to terminate the deal, and who knows, maybe he'll send more. His pretext for backing out of the deal - I am not going to try to pretend that he really believes this stuff - isn't looking so good, partly because his whistleblower deus ex machina seems to be a bust.

One way to implement the changes Zatko wanted was to run Dorsey over!

The pretext Musk is leaning on is that Twitter is knowingly lying about its user numbers, overcounting bots, and so on. A whistleblower complaint filed by Peiter …

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Twitter is a mess — but in the Elon Musk trial, it might not matter

2022-08-25T09:45:00-04:00

In a fight between rich tech guys who like to move fast and break things, there isn't always a "good" side. This was underscored on Tuesday when Twitter's former security head Peiter "Mudge" Zatko accused the company of hiding a wealth of risky behavior - and, in the process, put himself in the middle of Twitter's legal battle with Elon Musk. The report isn't great for Twitter, but you're probably already asking the obvious question: is it bad for Twitter in the courtroom?

The best answer I've found is: probably, yes. But on Twitter's fancy leaked threat matrix scale, the company's odds are more "impaired" than "physically destroyed"… with …

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