Elon Musk may have already violated a key clause in the deal he struck with Twitter. One day after Twitter revealed the terms of its deal with Musk, Tesla’s chief executive was already raising questions about his willingness to abide by a belittling clause.
According to SEC documents shared by Twitter on Tuesday, Musk was “allowed to post tweets about the merger or deals provided here, as long as such tweets do not humiliate the company or any of its representatives.” In other words, Musk can tweet about the deal whatever he wants, but he can’t tarnish Twitter or its employees.
But again, Musk doesn’t seem to want to moderate and did so at the expense of Twitter’s chief executive.
On Tuesday night, Musk responded to a tweet about an earlier Politico story that reported that Twitter’s chief executive, Vijaya Gade, was crying during a meeting with officials discussing Musk’s buyout. The original tweet also noted Gadde’s role in Twitter’s processing of Hunter Biden’s history in 2020. The company quickly reversed course after initially trying to limit history by quoting its hacked policy.
“Suspending the Twitter account of a major news organization to publish a true story was obviously incredibly inappropriate,” Musk said. On Wednesday, Musk turned to Gade again, tweeting a meme based on her appearance in a 2019 episode of Joe Rogan’s podcast.
The tweets, which sparked a wave of harassment against Gade, prompted two former Twitter executives to stand up for her. Twitter co-founder and former chief executive E.W. Williams wrote that Gade was “one of the most considerate and principled people I know.”
Former CEO Dick Costolo was sharper. “You are becoming the CEO of the company you just bought, subject to harassment and threats,” he said. “Harassment is not leadership,” he tweeted. “I’m just saying Twitter needs to be politically neutral,” Musk said.
It should be noted that neither Jack Dorsey – who recently enthusiastically supported Musk’s takeover – nor current CEO Parag Agraval have commented directly. Agraul tweeted on Wednesday that he was “proud of our people who continue to do their job focused and urgent despite the noise.”
Twitter did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
However, this kind of “noise” from Musk will probably not be liked by Twitter employees, many of whom are already afraid of the direction in which Musk will take the platform.
Musk said he wanted Twitter to be “politically neutral,” which he said “effectively means upsetting the far right and the far left.” Early reports examining changes in the number of followers for high-profile accounts suggest that far-right politicians are seeing a sharp increase in followers.
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