Elon Musk news - live: Musk dumps $4bn worth of shares in Tesla shares as personal wealth drops below $200bn
Twitter lays off staff around the world as Musk continues to attract criticism in his new position
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Musk has been criticised for urging “independent-minded voters” to back Republican candidates in this week’s midterm elections.
The Tesla and SpaceX boss, who bought Twitter for $44 billion last month, told his 115m followers that “shared power curbs the worst excesses of both parties”, and that voters should therefore limit a Democratic president by voting for a Republican Congress.
The move appeared to cause a price-drop in Tesla’s stock that caused Mr Musk’s net worth to drop below $200bn.
It is the latest episode in a week of chaos the San-Francisco-based social network, which reportedly may have to rehire some of the staff that it fired last week because it needs their expertise.
Mr Musk decided to lay off almost 50 per cent of Twitter staff, with the company’s employees alerted on their job status by email after barring their entrances to offices and cutting off their access to internal systems overnight.
Backlash against Elon Musk’s endorsement of Republicans
Elon Musk has been slammed for telling “independent-minded voters” to turn out for Republican in the midterms.
On Monday morning, a day before the midterm elections on Tuesday, the Twitter owner tweeted that “shared power curbs the worst excesses of both parties, therefore I recommend voting for a Republican Congress, given that the Presidency is Democratic”.
“Hardcore Democrats or Republicans never vote for the other side, so independent voters are the ones who actually decide who’s in charge!” he added.
Twitter users were quick to criticise Mr Musk.
“I’m an independent, and I’m voting straight blue down the ticket this year… Republicans have gone insane!” William LeGate responded.
Read more from Gustaf Kilander’s full report.
‘Nonsense’: Musk slammed after telling voters to back GOP hours before Election Day
‘Republicans will do to democracy what Elon did to Twitter,’ Lincoln Project writes
Gigi Hadid deactivates her Twitter page after Elon Musk takeover: ‘A cesspool of hate and bigotry’
Gigi Hadid has deactivated her Twitter account and slammed the social media platform as “a cesspool of hate and bigotry” in an impassioned post.
The supermodel shared her thoughts about Twitter on her Instagram Story on Saturday. Her post comes amid the company going through many shake-ups since Tesla founder and billionaire Elon Musk took it over in recent weeks.
“I deactivated my Twitter account today. For a long time, but especially with its new leadership, it’s becoming more and more a cesspool of hate and bigotry, and it’s not a place I want to be a part of,” she wrote.
Jenna Amatulli has the full story.
Gigi Hadid deactivates her Twitter page after Elon Musk takeover: ‘Cesspool of hate’
“I can’t say it’s a safe place for anyone, nor a social platform that will do more good than harm,” the model wrote on Instagram
Will Twitter-style layoffs become the ‘new standard’ in tech? One investor thinks so
Elon Musk shocked the tech world when he announced plans to lay off nearly 50 per cent of Twitter’s workforce.
Elon Musk will begin massive Twitter layoffs on Friday, say reports
Billionaire expected to fire half of 7,500 employees at San Francisco-based company
Some, like tech investor David Friedberg, say this is what many in the tech world should expect in the future.
"It really kind of sets a new standard that a lot of folks might then end up saying, maybe we should go deeper," he added.
Other companies like Snap and Stripe have also had double-digit per cent layoffs in recent months.
Former Twitter exec ‘really concerned’ mass layoffs could impact site’s handle on misinformation during midterms
Twitter’s former director of product management says he’s worried that new owner Elon Musk’s massive layoffs at the company are coming at the exact wrong time, just as the midterm elections take place.
Edward Perez used to oversee the company’s civic integrity team, a 100-person unit that monitored the spread of mis- and disinformation across Twitter.
“I really am concerned that it feels like the drama around corporate takeover is sucking up all the oxygen in the room,” Mr Perez told Wired, adding that he’s worried about “potentially inadequate attention on these election-related issues.”
The Tesla billionaire has pushed through mass layoffs affecting about half of the company.
Elon Musk will begin massive Twitter layoffs on Friday, say reports
Billionaire expected to fire half of 7,500 employees at San Francisco-based company
Elon Musk posts picture of Nazi soldier
Observers have noted that Elon Musk shared a photo of a Nazi soldier in a post making a joke about social media.
On Monday, the new Twitter owner posted a photo of a soldier holding a cage with three carrier pigeons, with a superimposed red icon deonting unread messages, captioned with the phrase, “How times have changed.”
As Tori Otten of The New Republic notes, the meme is based on a picture of a Nazi soldier.
When Mr Musk planned to buy Twitter, observers warned that the billionaire would turn the network into a “supercharged engine of radicalisation.”
Observers fret Musk could turn Twitter into ‘supercharged engine of radicalisation’
Many observers worried about changes coming to social platform
Is divided government really a good thing like Elon Musk suggests? Not everyone is buying it.
Elon Musk shocked some and thrilled others when he urged his legions of followers to vote for Republicans if they were “independent-minded.”
“Shared power curbs the worst excesses of both parties, therefore I recommend voting for a Republican Congress, given that the Presidency is Democratic,” the new Twitter boss wrote on the social network.
Many were critical of the billionaire’s endorsement, arguing he was strengthening the increasingly right-wing GOP.
Others took issue with Mr Musk’s basic premise.
New York Times columnist and economist Paul Krugman argued in a piece on Tuesday that on a purely factual level, divided party government doesn’t necessarily mean better results for the economy or anything else.
“Divided government isn’t a good thing,” he wrote, arguing that relatively prosperous periods under divided government could be explained by larger factors outside of a split Congress.
“Extrapolating from the Clinton years, when partial government paralysis did relatively little harm, is a really bad idea.”
Voices: Elon Musk may be one of the worst people on Earth to fix Twitter’s biggest problem
Hellsite. That is the word so often chosen by Twitter users to describe the website where, for their sins, they sink so much time. It is also very close to the word that tech tycoon Elon Musk used on Thursday night when he finally confirmed that he would buy the social network, which he promised not to turn into a “hellscape”.
There’s little evidence that Musk is the man to solve the site’s many problems. For one thing, his record on supporting free speech is questionable, from allegedly firing whistleblowers and union organisers to reportedly asking the Chinese government to censor social media posts on its behalf. There was also the time he tried to pay a teenager to stop tweeting publicly available information about the movements of his private jet.
Worse, Musk has a long history of courting and inflaming exactly the type of vicious controversy that makes Twitter so hellish. He regularly makes drive-by interventions into hot-button issues such as trans rights and the Canadian trucker protests, firing off “jokes” or flip one-liners that bait partisans into reacting while declining to offer any serious articulation of his actual views.
Catch up on the Twitter story with this Voices column from Io Dodds.
Elon Musk may be one of the worst people on Earth to fix Twitter’s biggest problem
The controversial Tesla and SpaceX boss often appears to relish in the ‘hellscape’ that Twitter has become
Elon Musk says Twitter is ‘the worst’ amid increasing criticism – but it is also ‘the best’
Elon Musk has said that Twitter is the “worst”, but also the “best”, amid increasing criticism of his brief time owning it.
Mr Musk has faced criticism and a number of scandals in the time he has been owning and running the company, despite doing so for little over a week.
It wasn’t clear whether Mr Musk’s comments were describing the company, the site that it operates, or both.
“Twitter is the worst! But also the best,” he wrote on Twitter.
Andrew Griffin has the full story for The Independent.
Elon Musk says Twitter is ‘the worst’ amid increasing criticism
Elon Musk has said that Twitter is the “worst”, but also the “best”, amid increasing criticism of his brief time owning it.
Fans react to Ryan Reynolds joining Tumblr amid Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover
Fans have shared their amused reactions to Ryan Reynolds joining Tumblr amid Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter.
On Thursday, the 46-year-old actor shared his first Tumblr post, which included a meme from his hit film, Deadpool. In the days since, he has posted a handful of GIFs of himself on the platform, prompting mixed responses from fans to his page.
While some people claimed that Tumblr isn’t necessarily a place for celebrities, like Twitter has been, others welcomed Reynolds to the platform and encouraged him to share posts similar to what normal Tumblr bloggers would.
“I think the key to celebrities who survive Tumblr is that they understand we’re not here to follow them, they’re here to hang out with us,” one person wrote. “We’re here building a fort out of scraps of stuff we found in a dumpster and if Ryan Reynolds would like to sit down in the mud and contribute, he is welcome to. But the fort comes first.”
“You know maybe, we should let Ryan Reynolds stay - the guy has his likes and following hidden like a true Tumblrina,” another added.
Fans react to Ryan Reynolds joining Tumblr amid Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover
Actor launched his Tumblr page by sharing some memes from his film, ‘Deadpool’
Elon Musk slammed after telling voters to back GOP
Elon Musk has been slammed for telling “independent-minded voters” to turn out for Republican in the midterms.
On Monday morning, a day before the midterm elections on Tuesday, the Twitter owner tweeted that “shared power curbs the worst excesses of both parties, therefore I recommend voting for a Republican Congress, given that the Presidency is Democratic”.
“Hardcore Democrats or Republicans never vote for the other side, so independent voters are the ones who actually decide who’s in charge!” he added.
Twitter users were quick to criticise Mr Musk.
“I’m an independent, and I’m voting straight blue down the ticket this year… Republicans have gone insane!” William LeGate responded.
‘Nonsense’: Musk slammed after telling voters to back GOP hours before Election Day
‘Republicans will do to democracy what Elon did to Twitter,’ Lincoln Project writes
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