Errol Musk even took a swipe at Elon Musk’s physical appearance.
Elon Musk’s father, Errol Musk, has admitted that he isn’t proud of his billionaire son because the whole Musk family has achieved “a lot of things for a long time”.
On Monday, the 76-year-old spoke on the ‘Kyle and Jackie O’s Show‘ on the Australian radio station KIIS FM for a 20-minute interview, in which he talked about the Tesla chief and the rest of the Musk family, including Elon’s younger brother, Kimbal. In the interview, Errol downplayed his billionaire son’s success and took a dig at his physical appearance.
“Your offspring is a genius. He’s worth so much money and has created so many things, you can’t take that away from him. Are you proud?” presenter Jackie O asked Errol.
To this, the 76-year-old replied, “No. You know, we are a family that have been doing a lot of things for a long time, it’s not as if we suddenly started doing something.”
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Errol told the radio show that his children from his first wife Maye Musk – Elon, Tosca and Kimbal – had travelled around the globe with him since they were little, visiting places such as China and Amazon rainforest. “They’ve seen a lot of things, and we’ve done a lot of things together,” he stated, adding, “But Elon has in fact sort of really surpassed the mark.”
During the interview, Errol said that his billionaire son feels as though he is running five years behind the schedule in his career. “He (Elon Musk) is frustrated with progress and it’s understandable,” the billionaire’s father said. He added, “I know it sounds crazy, but we tend to think like that as a family. He’s 50 now and I still think of him as a little boy. But he’s 50, I mean that’s an old man.”
Further, Errol went on to say that his 49-year-old son Kimbal Musk, Elon’s younger brother, was his “pride and joy”. He also told the radio show host that Kimbal was lucky in his marriage with Cristiana Wyly because they spend a lot of time together. He added that he is worried about the SpaceX CEO not being able to find a partner who would give up a career for him.
Notably, Elon has nine children with four different women but is currently single. Errol stated, “He (Elon) has to find a woman to give up what she’s doing, and that’s not easy.”
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In the 20-minute interview, the South African engineer then took a swipe at his eldest child’s physical appearance. When asked to weigh in on recent pictures of Elon Musk from his Greece trip that showed the Tesla chief relaxing topless on a yacht, Errol said, “Elon is very strongly built but he’s been eating badly.” Errol also added that he has suggested Elon take diet pills.
Lastly, when asked by the talk show hosts if he drove a Tesla, Errol admitted that his stable luxury vehicles did not include one of his son’s electric cars. He revealed that he instead owns a Bentley, a Rolls Royce and a Mercedes.
On Friday evening, Tesla CEO Elon Musk finally made it crystal clear that he has no interest in adding “owner of Twitter” to his list of titles. The move was months in the making. Twitter is planning to sue in response.
In a letter to Twitter’s Chief Legal Officer Vijaya Gadde filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Musk notified the social media company that he would terminate the $44 billion acquisition deal he made in late April. However, it is not yet clear whether Musk can unilaterally end the agreement.
Musk has fixated on the number of spam accounts on the social network. Citing their proliferation of automated bots, he first claimed Twitter was in breach of its merger agreement in early June. Musk’s lawyers argue that the billionaire is backing out of the agreement because “Twitter is in material breach of multiple provisions of that Agreement, appears to have made false and misleading representations upon which Mr. Musk relied when entering into the Merger Agreement, and is likely to suffer a Company Material Adverse Effect.”
Twitter plans to sue Musk in response. Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal retweeted the company’s board chairman Bret Taylor’s promise of legal action minutes after the news broke in defiance of the Tesla CEO.
“The Twitter Board is committed to closing the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon with Mr. Musk and plans to pursue legal action to enforce the merger agreement. We are confident we will prevail in the Delaware Court of Chancery,” Taylor wrote.
In an email to staff on Friday obtained by the Verge, Sean Edgett, Twitter’s general counsel, told folks not to share any commentary on the merger on Twitter or Slack.
“Given that this is an ongoing legal matter, you should refrain from Tweeting, Slacking, or sharing any commentary about the merger agreement. We will continue to share information when we are able, but please know we are going to be very limited on what we can share in the meantime,” Edgett wrote. “I know this is an uncertain time, and we appreciate your patience and ongoing commitment to the important work we have underway.”
Jesse Fried, a Harvard Law School professor, told Gizmodo in an email on Friday that Musk could not “simply walk away from the deal” and is probably trying to lower the price of the acquisition.
“He is bound to buy Twitter if he has adequate financing, as it seems he does. There are narrow outs,” Fried said. “Given the contract and Twitter’s post-signing conduct, Musk is highly unlikely to get a Delaware court to give him a ‘get-out-of-merger free card.’ He has presumably been told that by his lawyers.”
The news that Musk is backing out of the acquisition agreement follows months of public buyer’s remorse expressed on Twitter itself. The company says automated bots and spam accounts make up just 5% of the social network’s users, a figure Musk believed was much higher. He requested and received more data on Twitter’s user base but ultimately said the information provided was insufficient.
On Thursday, the Washington Post reported that the billionaire’s deal to acquire Twitter was in “serious jeopardy” and that Musk had stopped engaging in funding discussions. The outlet cited doubts from Musk’s team over the data provided on the number of fake accounts and spam bots provided to it by Twitter.
The back-and-forth with Musk has had detrimental effects on Twitter. The stock price of the company had fallen to $36.10 as of Friday, well below the $54.20 he offered. The company laid off members of its recruiting team on Friday as well, though layoffs have struck the tech industry writ large as the stock market has tumbled in recent months. Musk cited the layoffs in his deal termination letter as well as several high-profile resignations. In June, amid a flurry of Musk mayhem, Twitter said it was still committed to closing the deal and hinted that it was unafraid to take legal action. When asked about the Post’s report early today, Twitter reiterated its June response: “We believe this agreement is in the best interest of all shareholders. We intend to close the transaction and enforce the merger agreement.”
Musk, Twitter’s largest shareholder, has behaved like Twitter’s owner for weeks now: He’s taken questions from Twitter employees in a town hall, given them product advice (make Twitter more like TikTok).
Fried said it’s all probably just a game to Musk.
“Litigation will be costly for Twitter, and it may agree to lower the price to settle the litigation. This is probably Musk’s game plan here,” the professor said.
Musk’s lawyers delved into further detail of Twitter’s perceived slights and contract violations, the majority of which centered on the blue bird company apparently declining to provide or providing incomplete information to the billionaire.
The billionaire’s accusations are as follows:
Spam and Fake Accounts
As is to be expected, Musk complained about a lack of information from Twitter related to Twitter’s spam and fake accounts. His lawyers state that the social media company did not provide the following:
“(1) daily global mDAU data since October 1, 2020; (2) information regarding the sampling population for mDAU, including whether the mDAU population used for auditing spam and false accounts is the same mDAU population used for quarterly reporting; (3) outputs of each step of the sampling process for each day during the weeks of January 30, 2022 and June 19, 2022; (4) documentation or other guidance provided to contractor agents used for auditing mDAU samples; (5) information regarding the user interface of Twitter’s ADAP tool and any internal tools used by the contractor agents; and (6) mDAU audit sampling information, including anonymized information identifying the contractor agents and Quality Analyst that reviewed each sampled account, the designation given by each contractor agent and Quality Analyst, and the current status of any accounts labelled “compromised.”
The billionaire said he did not receive data on the methodology Twitter uses to suspend spam and fake accounts.
According to the letter, Musk apparently wanted “access to the sample set used and calculations performed” to determine that less than 5% of Twitter’s mDAUs are fake or spam accounts, which is what the company claims. The request included the daily measures of mDAUs for the past eight quarters. The letter states that the social media company has provided “certain summary data” regarding its mDAU calculations, but not the complete daily measures. In addition, Musk requested materials provided to Twitter’s board about mDAUs’ calculations. Again, he claims he received incomplete information.
“Preliminary analysis by Mr. Musk’s advisors of the information provided by Twitter to date causes Mr. Musk to strongly believe that the proportion of false and spam accounts included in the reported mDAU count is wildly higher than 5%,” the letter states.
Materials Related to Twitter’s Financial Condition
Furthermore, the billionaire’s lawyers claim that he is entitled to certain financial data related to Twitter, including information that aims to help him secure financing for the deal. Musk purported asked for a Twitter’s financial model and budget for 2022, an updated draft plan or budget, and a “working copy” of the Goldman Sachs’ valuation model. He reportedly has only received a PDF copy of Goldman Sachs’ final board presentation.
Access to APIs and Query Restriction
When Musk was provided with information, his lawyers claim it came “with strings attached.” For instance, they claim that Musk was initially not given the same access given to customers to eight Twitter developer APIs. This was only remedied after explaining the lack of access to the company.
Nonetheless, the APIs reportedly contain a “query cap” that prevents Musk and his team from carrying out their desired analyses of the data. The cap was only removed after Musk complained about it twice.
Twitter Fired Two High-Level Execs, Laid Off People, and Froze Hiring
Finally, Musk’s lawyers state that Twitter was obliged to “preserve substantially intact the material components of its current business organization,” something they claim it did not do. The violations in this area began when the blue bird app fired Kayvon Beykpour and Bruce Falck, its general manager of product and general manager of revenue, respectively, in May.
The letter also cites Twitter laying off 30% of its talent acquisition team this past Thursday and its hiring freeze. As if that wasn’t enough, Musk is also purportedly mad that Twitter didn’t stop its head of data science; the vice president of Twitter service; and a vice president of product management for health, conversation, and growth from leaving.
“The Company has not received Parent’s consent for changes in the conduct of its business,” Musk’s lawyers wrote.
Update 7/9/2022, 6:26 a.m. ET: This post has been updated with information about Edgett’s email to staff.
When I was six, I peed my pants in class because I was too proud to use my public school bathroom. Similarly, suave billionaire and alleged sexual harasser Elon Musk peed his proverbial pants after a Twitter scuffle with the satirical video game site Hard Drive. Neither Musk nor Hard Drive returned a request for comment.
On May 30, Musk posted a screenshot of Hard Drive’s article “Zodiac Killer Letter Solved by Opening It With VLC Media Player” with the site’s name cropped out. This was done in accordance with his belief that online images exist to be stolen—in 2019, Musk tweeted that “no one should be credited with anything ever,” though he is currently very angry that President Joe Biden has not yet publicly acknowledged Tesla as a leading electric vehicle company.
Despite his thinking that crediting artists for their work is “destroying the medium,” Musk did eventually delete the image he swiped from Hard Drive. But it took a battle of wit and stamina to get him there, which is to say that Musk regurgitated a few aphorisms about art and comedy until Hard Drive skewered his approaches to both, making him, presumably, turn his Tesla on Autopilot and cry his way to yet another shareholder lawsuit.
“The selfless art of anonymous meme creators is something to be admired,” Musk tweeted at the Hard Drive Twitter account after it requested credit twice.
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“ok well lemme know what you think about this one,” Hard Drivesaid in response and posted a link to an article titled “Elon Musk Admits He Wants to Travel to Mars Because No One Hates Him There Yet.” Musk did not seem like he wanted to steal that one.
“The reason you’re not that funny is because you’re woke,” he said. “Humor relies on an intuitive & often awkward truth being recognized by the audience, but wokism is a lie, which is why nobody laughs.”
A most intriguing observation indeed. It forces us to ponder why Musk reposted Hard Drive at all. The site’s being “not that funny” and “woke” clearly proves an affront to his discerning taste and sensibility, which includes allegedly showing an unwilling woman his penis. It is also possible that Musk’s condemnation of Hard Drive’s “wokism” stems from some sort of affinity with the Zodiac Killer, the origin of this Twitter spar.
“very funny to me that elon’s example of ‘woke humor’ is an article making fun of the ZODIAC KILLER of all people,” Hard Drive editor-in-chief Jeremy Kaplowitz said. “’woke comedy is ruining everything, man. you used to be able to kill a bunch of people in the 60s and write letters to the police about it, but not anymore.’”
Musk called a Hard Drive writer a coward for blocking him, declared the stolen meme he tweeted to protect a result of a “slow meme day,” and rounded the night off with another pilfered meme. This one was about putting your phone down and going outside. Hopefully, Musk stays online—who else would defend the Zodiac Killer’s honor?