Tag: Elon Musk

Commentary: ADL’s Partisanship Harms the Fight Against Antisemitism

Michigan Star Staff
Jon Greenblatt

For over a century, the Anti-Defamation League has enjoyed a reputation as the preeminent Jewish organization combating antisemitism and all forms of hate. Its acronym, ADL, has “household name” status—and not just in Jewish homes. This makes its current penchant for partisanship extraordinarily dangerous for, and beyond, the Jewish community.

Last December, Senate Republicans learned that a Joe Biden nominee for a lifetime judicial appointment, Adeel Mangi, was previously a board member and generous supporter of the antisemitic Center for Security, Race and Rights at Rutgers University Law School.

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Musk’s SpaceX Has Deep Ties with U.S. Intelligence Agencies

Michigan Star Staff
Space X Building

Elon Musk’s SpaceX has forged a close relationship with the U.S. military and intelligence community and plans to expand contracts with the government, including a secretive project known as Starshield, The Wall Street Journal reported.

SpaceX has rocketed past the U.S. military and other commercial firms to become a leading entity in the space launch competition, and its success has attracted the attention of major U.S. military and intelligence agencies, according to the outlet. Starshield, just one example of the deepening ties between the commercial and government space, supplies government clients with satellites capable of secure communications and data collection with different kinds of observation units, the WSJ reported, citing a website made public in 2022.

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Elon Musk Says His Brain Chip Allowed Patient to Move Object with His Mind

Michigan Star Staff
Surgery

Billionaire Elon Musk says his company Neuralink’s first human brain chip patient is not experiencing any negative effects and is controlling a computer mouse using their mind.

Neuralink successfully implanted the patient in January, Musk announced on X, formerly known as Twitter. He provided an update on the patient during an X Spaces conversation Monday that the patient has recovered well and is able to control a computer mouse with his mind.

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Commentary: DC Appellate Judges Use ‘Unprecedented Approach’ to Get Trump’s Twitter Files

Julie Kelly
Trump DC

In January 2023, two months after his appointment as special counsel, Jack Smith applied for a search warrant to obtain all of the data associated with Donald Trump’s long-dormant Twitter account. Smith sought not just public posts but direct messages, drafted and deleted posts, and the identity of any individual with access to the account. Smith also asked for “all users [Trump’s account] has followed, unfollowed, muted, unmuted, blocked, or unblocked, and all users who have followed, unfollowed, muted, unmuted, blocked, or unblocked” Trump’s account.

The application was stunning in scope with no justification as to why the government needed such a limitless trove of information—particularly one that clearly ran afoul of Trump’s right to assert executive privilege. So, Smith neatly settled that matter by additionally asking for a nondisclosure order that prevented Twitter from notifying Trump about the search warrant for 180 days.

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Commentary: Moderna Came Up with a Vaccine Against Vaccine Dissent

RealClearWire
Moderna Vaccine

Finances at the vaccine manufacturer Moderna began to fall almost as quickly as they had risen, as most Americans resisted getting yet another COVID booster shot. The pharmaceutical company, whose pioneering mRNA vaccine had turned it from small startup to biotech giant worth more than $100 billion in just a few years, reported a third-quarter loss last year of $3.6 billion, as most Americans refused to get another COVID booster shot.

In a September call aimed at shoring up investors, Moderna’s then-chief commercial officer, Arpa Garay, attributed some of the hesitancy pummeling Moderna’s numbers to uninformed vaccine skeptics. “Despite some misinformation,” Garay said, COVID-19 still drove significant hospitalizations. “It really is a vaccine that’s relevant across all age groups,” she insisted.

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European Union to Investigate Elon Musk and X over Possible Violations of Social Media Laws

Michigan Star Staff
Musk EU

On Monday, the European Union (EU) formally announced that it would be launching an investigation into X, the platform formally known as Twitter, over alleged violations of laws meant to crack down on free speech.

According to ABC News, the investigation will be the first one of its kind under new regulations passed by the 27-nation European bloc. In a post on X, European Commissioner Thierry Breton said in a statement that “Today we open formal infringement proceedings against @X” under the Digital Services Act.

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Commentary: Government Cannot Become Big Brother

RealClearWire

Anyone who lived through 2020 observed that some messages received treatment online that stood in stark contrast to other messages. Conservative voices and messages were censored and banned, while progressive voices and messages flowed freely. If a person spoke against COVID-19 lockdowns—and later vaccines—there was a good chance that a social media platform would take down the post. If one were to suggest that suspicious activities occurred surrounding the 2020 election, the label “misinformation” might appear.

The primary vehicle to censor internet speech is to label disfavored messages as dis-, mis-, or mal-information. While the category of malinformation is seemingly the most offensive – true information that government censors believe lacks sufficient “context” – the other categories can be just as malignant. Mis- and disinformation require someone to determine what is true and what is not.

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Tesla Issues Recall for Almost All U.S. Vehicles After Government Probe

Michigan Star Staff

Electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla filed a safety recall for over 2 million vehicles with federal regulators following a two-year investigation into the company’s autopilot feature, according to an announcement from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) on Wednesday.

The Tesla recall covers 2.03 million vehicles, including the Model 3, Model Y, Model X and Model S, made between Oct. 5, 2012 and Dec. 7, 2023, over concerns with their autopilot feature enabling driver misuse through a lack of engagement while operating the vehicle, according to a document from the NHTSA. The recall covers nearly all Tesla vehicles in the U.S. and is one of many actions taken by the NHTSA around Tesla’s autopilot feature, with the agency contending that the feature’s name is misleading as drivers still have to be engaged during its use, according to The Associated Press.

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Commentary: If Your Kids Aren’t Happy at School, Find Them Another One

Michigan Star Staff

“I hated going to school when I was a kid,” said Elon Musk in a 2015 interview. “It was torture.”

When deciding how his own children would be educated, Musk rejected traditional schooling and created his own project-based microschool, Ad Astra, in 2014, on his SpaceX campus. “The kids really love going to school,” said Musk about Ad Astra in that same interview, adding that “they actually think vacations are too long as they want to go back to school.” In 2020, Ad Astra evolved into the fully online school, Astra Nova, and its popular math enrichment spin-off, Synthesis.

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Judge Recuses Himself from X Suit Against Media Matters

Just the News

U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman on Tuesday announced that he would recuse himself from a lawsuit against Media Matters for America (MMFA) filed by social media company X.

Pittman did not state a reason for his recusal, The Hill reported. Elon Musk’s X sued the watchdog group over an article in published that featured images of ads for the platform’s major advertisers next to antisemitic and pro-Nazi content.

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Commentary: Elon Musk Is Going ‘Thermonuclear’

RealClearWire

Elon Musk is going “thermonuclear.”

No, this has nothing to do with SpaceX or any of his other wild technology projects – but it’s how Musk described the lawsuit he was filing against Media Matters for America this week. The lawsuit is in response to a Media Matters report last week that X, the Musk-owned social media platform formerly known as Twitter, was placing ads for major brands such as Apple and IBM next to “pro-Nazi content.” After some prodding from Media Matters, within a day of their report, a slew of major corporations, such as IBM, Disney, Comcast, Sony, NBC, and Warner Brothers, announced they were pulling ads from X.

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Vivek Ramaswamy Joins Elon Musk, David Sacks on X Spaces in Discussing How the Israel-Hamas Conflict Could Lead to WWIII

Kaitlin Housler

GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, X owner Elon Musk, and venture capitalist David Sacks hosted a discussion on X Spaces surrounding the current conflict in Israel and if the world is marching towards WWIII. Kicking off the conversation, Musk, citing his close ties to the intelligence department, said U.S. officials are saying the conflict in the Middle East continues “getting worse, not better.”

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Elon Musk’s Brain Chip Company Is Officially Recruiting Humans for Testing

Michigan Star Staff

Billionaire Elon Musk’s brain chip company Neuralink is officially recruiting human beings for a clinical trial, the biotech firm announced on Tuesday.

The trial will be open to individuals with quadriplegia resulting from cervical spinal cord injury or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Neuralink announced on its website. It seeks to assess the brain implant’s safety, the performance of its “surgical robot” and gauge the chip’s effectiveness in allowing paralyzed people to influence external devices through their thoughts.

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Elon Musk’s X Sues California over Alleged First Amendment Violations

Michigan Star Staff

Elon Musk’s X Corp. sued California to block a law requiring social media companies to publish their content moderation policies, alleging it violates the First Amendment and coerces censorship.

X, formerly known as Twitter, asserted that California’s Assembly Bill 587 infringes upon its freedom of speech under the First Amendment and California’s state constitution, according to court documents. The law mandates social media companies release reports on how they moderate issues including hate speech, extremism, disinformation and misinformation.

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Musk: Fight Against Zuckerberg Will Be Live-Streamed on X with Proceeds Going to Veterans

Just the News

Elon Musk says that his fight with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg will be live-streamed on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter that Musk owns.

“Zuck v Musk fight will be live-streamed on 𝕏. All proceeds will go to charity for veterans,” Musk wrote on X early Sunday morning.

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‘We’re Paying People to Hate America’: Musk And Ramaswamy Blast Department of Education

Michigan Star Staff

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and Twitter owner Elon Musk ripped the current education system in the United States Friday, saying that taxpayers were “paying people to hate America.”

Ramaswamy and Musk took part in a Twitter Spaces forum where Ramaswamy blasted the Department of Education for using funding as an incentive for schools to use certain theories in curricula. Ramaswamy outlined plans to shut down that department during a July 20 forum in New Hampshire.

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GOP Presidential Candidate Vivek Ramaswamy to Join Elon Musk and Investor David Sacks on X.com

M.D. Kittle

Heading into Iowa for a big weekend after rising in the polls, Ohio businessman and GOP presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy will join Elon Musk and investor David Sacks live Friday afternoon on x.com.

The conversation on the social network platform formerly known as Twitter is set for 4:30 p.m. Central Time, hours before Ramaswamy joins much of the rest of the packed field of Republican presidential candidates at the Republican Party of Iowa’s Lincoln Dinner fundraiser in Des Moines.

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Zuckerberg’s Twitter Clone Continues to Crash in Popularity: Report

Michigan Star Staff

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s Twitter rival Threads has plummeted in popularity for a second consecutive week, according to market intelligence company Sensor Tower, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The so-called “Twitter Killer” has experienced a substantial fall in engagement, down to 13 million daily active users, which is a 70% drop from July 7, according to Sensor Tower estimates, the WSJ reported. Meanwhile, billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s Twitter steadily maintains around 200 million active daily users, who spend an average of 30 minutes on the platform.

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Twitter’s Top Engineer Resigns after DeSantis’ Glitch-Plagued Presidential Announcement on Platform

Just the News

The head of Twitter’s engineering operations has resigned after the platform’s hosting of Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis’ glitch-plagued 2024 presidential campaign launch.

“After almost four incredible years at Twitter, I decided to leave the nest yesterday,” Twitter’s Foad Dabiri tweeted. “The combination of the fantastic community, the impact it has, and its limitless potential sets Twitter apart.”

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Trump, DeSantis, Ramaswamy, and More: News and Notes from the Presidential Campaign Trail

M.D. Kittle

A glitchy start to the Ron DeSantis campaign, Tim Scott fires back at “The View,” Vivek Ramaswamy takes on Target, and Nikki Haley gets a CNN Town Hall.

There’s no rest for the weary on the expanded presidential campaign trail.

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DeSantis to Announce 2024 Presidential Campaign in Twitter Conversation with Elon Musk: Reports

Just the News

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is reportedly expected to formally announce his 2024 presidential campaign Wednesday on Twitter in a conversation with the social media company’s CEO, Elon Musk. The announcement will be made 6 p.m. ET Wednesday on Twitter Spaces, which is Twitter’s audio conversation part of the platform. Tech entrepreneur and DeSantis supporter David Sacks is expected to moderate the conversation.

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Commentary: America Doesn’t Have a Free Press

Admin

Twitter owner and CEO Elon Musk kicked the hornet’s nest when he labeled National Public Radio “state affiliated media.” The howls of protest were amusing, and telling. While they like to pretend otherwise, the mass media in the United States operate much like the state-run media of autocratic regimes. 

And it isn’t just NPR. The New York Times and CNN are preoccupied with the generation of propaganda, narrative making, the enforcement of dogmas (“woke” agendas on race, climate, sex, etc.), and the censorship of dissenters. 

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New Bill Would Ban Feds from Working with Big Tech to Censor Americans

The Center Square

Leading Republican lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives filed new legislation that would ban federal employees from working with big tech companies to censor Americans.

The bill comes as ongoing reports show that federal law enforcement and the White House have regularly communicated with social media companies like Facebook and Twitter, pressuring the companies to remove posts and accounts for a range of issues, including questioning the COVID-19 vaccine.

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Commentary: Twitter Files Point to Urgent Need for Platform Transparency

RealClearWire

December has been a whirlwind month in the Twitterverse. A new academic study argued that hate speech was surging on the platform, while new company owner Elon Musk countered that such tweets were being quietly hidden, so they didn’t count. High-profile journalists were abruptly suspended and restored with little explanation, with condemnations from the EU and UN. All the while, the so-called “Twitter Files” allowed an unprecedented inside look at the messy and controversial world of platform moderation. What can we learn from all of this about the how the social platforms at the heart of our digital democracies are run?

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Twitter Users Vote for Elon Musk to Step Down as CEO

Admin

Twitter users voted for owner and CEO Elon Musk to step down from his leadership role by a 15-point margin in a Sunday poll.

“Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll,” Musk asked in a Sunday afternoon tweet. The query came after Twitter implemented several recent changes in its policies, specifically instituting a policy prohibiting the sharing of real-time public information that resulted in the suspensions of several journalists.

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FBI Paid Twitter Millions, Had Close Relationship with Execs and Staff, Emails Show

Admin

The FBI paid Twitter millions as a reimbursement for the time the company spent processing the FBI’s requests, according to internal documents published by author Michael Shellenberger Monday, in the most recent installment of Twitter CEO Elon Musk’s ongoing “Twitter Files.”

In an email with the subject line “Run the business – we made money!” an employee, whose name was redacted, reports to then-Deputy General Counsel Jim Baker, that the FBI paid Twitter nearly $3.5 million dollars between October 2019 and February 2021, Shellenberger reported. Baker, a former FBI agent, was the agency’s general counsel during Operation Crossfire Hurricane, and approved the surveillance of former Trump campaign aide Carter Page via improper use of the Steele dossier, according to a report by the Justice Department’s inspector general.

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Newest ‘Twitter Files’ Release Reveals Platform’s ‘Constant and Pervasive’ Dealings with FBI

Just the News

The latest “Twitter Files” release, on Friday evening, details the social media platform’s relationship with the FBI and outlined communications between the federal agency seeking takedowns of select posts.

The most recent release is from independent journalist Matt Taibbi, one of several individuals to whom new Twitter CEO Elon Musk has granted access to the company’s internal communications in a bid to highlight the prior management’s efforts to stifle posts that didn’t agree with their world view.

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Hispanic Media Cover Elon Musk Negatively and Remain Silent About Twitter Files and Freedom of Expression

Michigan Star Staff

America’s increasingly powerful Spanish-language media outlets have largely ignored coverage of critical free speech issues, such as Twitter’s censorship of the New York Post  ‘s investigation into Hunter Biden’s laptop, and in instead they have focused on stories that negatively expose Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter, according to an analysis of ADN America.

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Commentary: Obama-Biden Government in Exile Ran Hunter Laptop Suppression Operation

Michigan Star Staff

They got the band back together—to the extent the original members ever broke up in the first place.

Recent disclosures by independent journalist Matt Taibbi confirmed what other reporters have been covering for the better part of two years: According to files obtained by Elon Musk, the new owner and CEO of Twitter, the social media platform protected Joe Biden and his family from a major and potentially election-altering scandal as millions of Americans were voting early for president in October 2020. Years of denials and dismissals related to Hunter Biden’s lucrative shakedown of hostile nations, including Russia and China, were set to explode just a few weeks before Election Day.

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Commentary: Musk’s ‘Twitter Files’ Confirm Everything We Already Knew

Michigan Star Staff

Late Friday, Matt Taibbi used the Twitter platform to publish numerous tweets devoted to the site’s internal deliberations regarding the Hunter Biden laptop story that most major media suppressed during the 2020 election.

The story, which is what it was, is based on documents obtained from the platform’s new owner and is a marketing coup that will drive traffic to the site. It confirms just how savvy Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, is.

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Twitter Docs Released by Musk and Journalist Suggest Democrats Could Manipulate Speech on Platform

Just the News

Twitter owner Elon Musk, through alternative journalist Matt Taibbi, released a series of internal documents on Friday suggesting that the Biden campaign and Democratic National Committee were able to manipulate speech on the platform through tools that Twitter made available.

That manipulation included the censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop story first reported by the New York Post. The emails appear to cite requests from “the Biden team” and “DNC” and include confirmations that Twitter “handled” their requests to delete posts.

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Musk Reinstates Trump’s Twitter Account After Millions Vote in Poll

Just the News

New Twitter owner Elon Musk declared Saturday night that former President Trump’s account will be reinstated.

Musk made the decision after polling Twitter users Friday. More than 15 million people responded, with nearly 52% supporting the return of the 45th president to the social platform.

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Musk Tells Twitter Staff ‘Bankruptcy Isn’t Out of the Question’ as Executives Leave over Privacy Concerns: Report

Michigan Star Staff

At an all hands meeting with Twitter employees following the departure of several top executives over user privacy concerns, CEO Elon Musk told employees that he was not sure of the company’s financial prospects, saying that “bankruptcy isn’t out of the question,” according to multiple reports.

At the same meeting, Musk also told employees that if they can “physically make it to an office and you don’t show up, resignation accepted,” Zoë Schiffer, the managing editor of tech newsletter Platformer, alleged in a thread on Twitter Thursday afternoon. The news comes after reports that a variety of high-level executives, including Chief Privacy Officer Damien Kieran, Chief Information Security Officer Lea Kissner — who also confirmed her departure in a Thursday tweet — and Chief Compliance Officer Marianne Fogarty all resigned Thursday in response to concerns that Musk was sacrificing user’s data security for profits, according to The Verge, citing anonymous sources and the company’s internal messages.

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Elon Musk Urges ‘Independent-Minded Voters’ to Vote Republican

Just the News

Billionaire business magnate Elon Musk on Monday urged “independent-minded” Twitter followers to vote for Republicans in the midterm elections Tuesday, arguing that shared power between the two parties is better for the country.

“To independent-minded voters: Shared power curbs the worst excesses of both parties, therefore I recommend voting for a Republican Congress, given that the Presidency is Democratic,” Twitter’s new CEO wrote.

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Elon Musk’s Twitter Begins Mass Layoffs: ‘Incredibly Challenging’

Michigan Star Staff

Twitter began laying staff off Friday, with up to half its workforce expected to be fired in a cost-cutting move by new owner and CEO Elon Musk.

The move comes eight days after Musk’s $44 billion deal to purchase the company, and after more than a week of conflicting reports about the extent and timing of layoffs that employees considered to be inevitable, Reuters reported. In addition to layoffs, Musk is having remaining Twitter staff work on a “Deep Cuts Plan,” designed to save $1 billion per year in infrastructure costs including server space and cloud computing services, Reuters reported.

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Report: Biden Admin Weighs Potential Investigation into Musk’s Purchase of Twitter

Michigan Star Staff

The Treasury Department is weighing whether or not it has the authority to launch an investigation into Elon Musk’s recent acquisition of Twitter, The Washington Post reported Tuesday evening.

Under the terms of the deal, foreign investors, including a member of the Saudi royal family, could potentially have access to confidential financial and user data, according to The Washington Post, citing anonymous sources familiar with the deal. Treasury Department officials are examining their legal options to investigate the deal, but whether they were aware of this potential information sharing was unclear and the Department’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) typically investigates foreign nationals, not U.S. citizens like Musk.

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Commentary: Twitter Will Survive Longer than the Washed-Up Celebrities Who Are Quitting It

Michigan Star Staff

I have never considered that my patronage of a business, or the lack thereof, would make or break the enterprise. So, I find it amusing that D-list celebrities believe their threats to leave Twitter could make any difference when it comes to the company’s bottom line.

This week, stars who haven’t been relevant in years, such as Toni Braxton and Sara Bareilles, announced that they would leave Twitter in the wake of its purchase by SpaceX founder Elon Musk. Braxton, who last had a Billboard 100 hit in the 1990s, said she was leaving because she saw “hate speech” on the platform since the acquisition late last week. Bareilles, who I think had a hit with “Love Song” in the early 2000s, claims the platform is “just not for me” anymore. 

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Elon Musk Announces $8.00 Monthly Fee for Verified Users

Michigan Star Staff

Twitter’s sole director Elon Musk announced on Tuesday that he will be charging verified accounts $8.00 a month to retain their blue checkmark status.

“Twitter’s current lords & peasants system for who has or doesn’t have a blue checkmark is bullshit,” he tweeted Tuesday afternoon. “Power to the people! Blue for $8/month.”

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Elon Musk Vows to Review Why Just the News Story Was Censored

Just the News

Twitter owner Elon Musk on Sunday said he would “look into” why a story from Just the News about election ballots was marked as “unsafe” on the social media platform.

“I will look into this. Twitter should be even-handed, favoring neither side,” Musk tweeted early Sunday morning in response to Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton, who posted the Just the News article, “Election ‘misinformation’ policing returns as Twitter flags JTN ballot harvesting report.”

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Commentary: Elon Musk Is a Much-Needed Insult to the Coddled Consensus Class That Is Ruining America

Michigan Star Staff

“The Bird is Freed!”

That’s what Elon Musk tweeted upon the consummation of his bid to buy Twitter. ’Twas a consummation devoutly to be wished. Why? For one thing, as Musk later tweeted, henceforth comedy once again will now be “legal on Twitter.”

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On Musk’s First Day, Twitter Flags Just the News On-the-Record Story on Election Ballots as ‘Unsafe’

Just the News

On the day Elon Musk took over Twitter, the social media platform flagged a post by Just the News Editor-in-Chief John Solomon aboutt Florida Gov. GOP Ron DeSantis’ administration asking for a police probe into a Democrat politician’s whistleblower complaint about voting irregularities.

Solomon argues Twitter action Thursday night unfairly flagged the post – with the note “Warning: this link may be unsafe” – and is asking Musk, who has vowed to stop the platform from unjustly censuring content, to intervene.

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Musk Plans to Cut 75 Percent of Twitter’s Workforce Following Takeover

Just the News

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has told potential investors that he will cut roughly three-quarters of Twitter’s workforce once he secures control of the company. 

The firm currently employs roughly 7,500 people. Documents the Washington Post obtained indicate that Musk plans to operate the platform with approximately 2,000 employees. Musk’s purchase of Twitter could reportedly close as soon as next week.

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Musk Makes Offer to Buy Twitter per Original Agreement

Just the News

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is proposed to buy Twitter at the price he originally offered, according to letter from his attorneys to those representing the social media company.

The letter, obtained by NBC News, was date Monday and confirmed news reports early Tuesday that Musk had offered Monday evening to purchase Twitter at $54.20 per share, which amounts to $44 billion for the entire company.

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Twitter Shareholders Approve $44 Billion Musk Buyout

Just the News

Twitter shareholders voted Tuesday in favor of Elon Musk’s purchase of the social media platform, despite his efforts to get out of the $44 billion deal.

Musk, the multi-billionaire owner of SpaceX and electric car company Telsa, has tried to terminate the deal on multiple occasions, citing the platform’s alleged security problems.

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