Month: June 2022

Elon Musk threatened to cancel his purchase of Twitter on Monday, accusing the social media platform of breaching the merger agreement by not providing the data he has requested on spam and fake accounts.

Musk alleged in a letter written to Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s head of legal, policy and trust, that Twitter is “actively resisting and thwarting his information rights” as outlined by the deal.  An attorney representing Musk wrote to the company: “This is a clear material breach of Twitter’s obligations under the merger agreement and Mr. Musk reserves all rights resulting therefrom, including his right not to consummate the transaction and his right to terminate the merger agreement.”  Musk has demanded that Twitter turn over information about its testing methodologies to support its claims that bots and fake accounts constitute less than 5% of the platform’s active user base. Musk has also alleged that the true number of spam accounts is likely much more, potentially as high as 90%. Musk has previously said the acquisition “cannot move forward” until the company provides “proof” of its spam metric.

Musk’s letter also insinuated that Twitter may be “withholding the requested data due to concern for what Mr. Musk’s own analysis of that data will uncover” and claimed Twitter had ‘sought to restrict access to the information by interpreting the merger agreement narrowly, such that providing the information would fall outside the scope of Twitter’s contractual requirements.’

Twitter’s CEO, Parag Agrawal, said in a statement Monday that “Twitter has and will continue to cooperatively share information with Mr. Musk to consummate the transaction in accordance with the terms of the merger agreement.” The company also said it intends to “close the transaction and enforce the merger agreement at the agreed price and terms.”

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New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed sweeping gun reform bills on Monday, banning individuals under the age of 21 from buying or possessing a semi-automatic rifle. The package was passed by the New York Assembly on June 2 after the May 14 shooting at a grocery store in Buffalo that left 13 dead and the May 24 shooting at Robb Elementary School in Texas that left 19 children and two adults dead.

The new legislation will add to previous gun laws by banning the purchase or possession of semi-automatic rifles by those under 21, requiring state and local law enforcement agencies to share gun crime information with federal databases, expanding the ability of health care professionals, police and district attorneys to file Extreme Risk Protection Orders, banning the sale of body armor to the general public and requiring a license to purchase assault weapons. The package will also criminalize both the act of making a threat of mass harm and adding to a threat with overt acts to further it.

Gov. Hochul said:  “This is a moral moment for the people of New York but also the rest of the nation. Follow what we did here in New York, and we’ll finally start to be at the beginning of the end of all this gun violence and the massacres that are occurring every day in our country.” Hochul announced further funding as part of New York State’s Gun Involved Violence Elimination initiative.  The funding will go towards 20 local police departments across these 17 counties that account for over 80% of the violent crime in New York.

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