Posts about Parag Agrawal
Centi-billionaire Elon Musk provoked Twitter and challenged the company’s CEO Parag Agrawal to a “public debate” about fake accounts and spam in the midst of a contentious legal battle over a $44 billion acquisition.
Musk filed a bid with the Securities and Exchange to acquire Twitter back in April this year. After the companies agreed to move ahead with a take-private deal, Musk said he was terminating his acquisition, and accused Twitter of presenting false numbers, including in its SEC filings, pertaining to the amount of monetizable daily active users, and the number of spam and bot accounts on the social network.
Twitter then sued Musk in a Delaware chancery court to ensure the deal would go through as promised, and Musk filed counterclaims and a countersuit there on July 29.
In a series of tweets that Musk began posting just before 1 a.m. on Saturday, Aug. 6, Musk interacted with a fan who had summarized his accusations about Twitter including that it was stonewalling him and giving him, “outdated data,” and “a fake data set” when he asked the company for details about how it tabulates mDAU, and estimates for spam and bot accounts.
The Tesla and SpaceX CEO wrote, “Good summary of the problem. If Twitter simply provides their method of sampling 100 accounts and how they’re confirmed to be real, the deal should proceed on original terms. However, if it turns out that their SEC filings are materially false, then it should not.”
By just after 9 a.m. Saturday morning, Musk started a Twitter poll asking his followers to vote on whether ”[l]ess than 5% of Twitter daily users are fake/spam.” Respondents to the informal poll could choose one of Musk’s provided answers which read either “Yes” followed by three robot emoji, or “Lmaooo no.” (The slang abbreviation “lmao” stands for “laughing my a-- off.)
Musk also wrote Saturday morning: “I hereby challenge u/paraga to a public debate about the Twitter bot percentage. Let him prove to the public that Twitter has <5% fake or spam daily users!”
https://i.redd.it/0pc4fltiuhg91.jpgA source close to the company says a debate is not going to happen outside of a pending trial.
Attorneys for Musk did not respond to requests to comment on Saturday, and an attorney for Twitter declined to comment on Musk’s Saturday tweets.
Twitter’s attorneys have argued in court filings that Musk gave the company just twenty-four hours to accept his offer before he would present it directly to Twitter shareholders, and waived due diligence including a chance to seek more information on false or spam accounts.
They wrote in court filings, “Musk’s repeated mischaracterizations of the merger agreement cannot change its plain words.”
At an annual shareholder meeting for Tesla on Aug. 4, Musk was asked to speak about Twitter during a question-and-answer session that followed a proxy vote.
He said, drawing laughter from the audience in attendance, “I obviously have to be a little careful what I say about Twitter because there’s this lawsuit and stuff.” He confirmed that the only two publicly traded securities he owns are Tesla and Twitter.
And then he spoke as if he still wants to become the owner of the social networking company, a stark contrast to arguments made by Musk via his attorneys in legal filings in Delaware in which Musk argues he should not have to go through with the deal.
At the Tesla 2022 shareholders’ meeting, Musk said: “I think in the case of Twitter since I use it a lot, shoot myself in the foot a lot, you know, dig my grave, etc. I think it’s — I do understand the product quite well, so I think I’ve got a good sense of where to point the engineering team at Twitter to make it radically better.”
He added that Twitter would “help accelerate” a “pretty grand vision” he had to build a business he’d been thinking about since his earliest years as a tech entrepreneur, X.com or X Corporation.
“Obviously that could be started from scratch,” he said, “but I think Twitter would help accelerate that by three to five years. So it’s kind of like something I’ve thought would be quite useful for a long time. I know what to do. Don’t have to have Twitter for that but, like I said, it’s probably at least a three-year accelerant and I think it’s something that will be very useful to the world.”
Musk didn’t go into any further details at that meeting. However, he reportedly said during a town hall meeting with Twitter employees in June this year that he wanted to grow Twitter’s user base to a billion people and saw Twitter as a platform that could evolve into an app like China’s WeChat, a “super app,” that incorporates everything from messaging, video and social media, to mobile and point-of-sales payments, with a robust app ecosystem.
Unless they reach a settlement first, Twitter and Musk are headed for a five-day trial in Delaware that starts on Oct. 17. The judge ruling on the case is Chancellor Kathaleen St. J. McCormick.
Elon Musk has challenged Twitter’s CEO Parag Agrawal to a public debate about the percentage of bots on Twitter. Musk is confident that Agrawal can't prove that less than 5% of TWTR accounts are fake or spam.
Twitter and Musk are headed for a five-day trial that will start on Oct. 17. In whose favor do you think the court suit will be ruled?
Elon Musk or Twitter?
We presently are unaware of the full specifics of the ongoing litigation situation with regards to spam-bots taking over the platform, however, there is one area of signal over all of the noise that is being created in the media with regards to Elon Musk and his proposal to use alt-coins that are designed to decrease in value over time. It is for this reason specifically, that we believe it would be in your best interests for you all to implement a feature that Michael Saylor Previously suggested - an "Orange Check Mark."
Working for a software company myself, I am avidly aware that you have your own development and features roadmap that your development team is occupied with for the remainder of the 2022 year. We are hoping that this could be a feature that is scheduled for implementation in Q1 or Q2 of 2023.
We believe that there is a common consensus that many bitcoiners are willing to pay a certain amount of satoshis to obtain an Orange Check Mark. Having spent a long time meditating on how to get rid of spam-bots on social media myself, we all know this is not the be-all-end-all solution, but when we check the comments section of any tweet made by Jack we simply see spam from people mentioning obscure alt-coins.
Now we should outline the features and purposes of the Orange Check mark. Proposed features of an Orange Check Mark:
Users with Orange Check Mark Have the option to restrict communication exclusively to other users with an Orange Check mark every time they tweet or retweet something on Twitter.
User Default: Once a user enables the Orange Check Mark, it is on by default, and can be enabled or disabled when a user brings up their tweet window. proposed example.
Easy Opt-in and Opt-out. A user simply deposits 10,000 satoshis (or a changing variable amount, updated yearly, depending on bitcoin volatility) to obtain their Orange Check Mark, and can withdraw the satoshis they deposited to opt-out.
Not Fully Restrictive: If Bob has an Orange Check Mark and Bob follows Alice, but Alice does not have an Orange Check Mark, Alice may interact with Bob's Orange Check Mark restricted Tweets as well.
Not Fully Restrictive 2: If Bob does not have an Orange Check Mark, and if Dave has an Orange Check Mark and neither Bob nor Dave know each other, Bob may also only restrict his tweets to Orange Check Mark users only, and Dave may respond to his tweets.
Benefits outlined by using an Orange Check Mark:
As redundant as it may sound, any user who has an Orange Check Mark visibly displays an Orange Check Mark on their Twitter profile where there would ordinarily be a Blue Check Mark for verified people of interest and influencers.
All of the Benefits outlined in the proposed features above.
With Kind Regards,
The Bitcoin Community.
This thread may be edited for clarity, formatting, and adding other features suggested from bitcoiners leaving comments here.
As an experiment, to help explain Elon's latest response to Twitter's demand for an expedited trial schedule I thought it might make sense to answer a BUNCH of the comments/questions I receive(d) by posting this simulated conversation between Elon Musk and Twitter's CEO. The vast majority of comments I get from folks here on Reddit are as follows: a) Elon knew Twitter had a bot problem, b) Elon waived due diligence, and c) the double-counting of users wasn’t material. This dialog can be found on my original post HERE.
ELON MUSK: The bot problem on Twitter is out of control. If you could get a handle on the bot problem the user experience could be improved 1000%! It should be doable since bots only represent <5% of overall users. Will you sell me your company for $44 billion dollars?
PARAG AGRAWAL: We’re concerned you aren’t serious and that you won’t close. How can we be sure you’ll close after spending the next few months kicking the tires?
ELON MUSK: What if I waived completion of due diligence as a condition of close?
PARAG AGRAWAL: That would go a long way. How about you pay us $1 billion if you decide not to close. Oh, and you’d need to personally guarantee the $1 billion dollars if you use a worthless shell company to buy the company.
ELON MUSK: $1 billion? Hm. Okay, but I will need at least six months to conduct diligence. You’ll need to agree to give me everything I’ll need to conduct my diligence including financial information and user data. Why don’t we say a six-month diligence period?
PARAG AGRAWAL: Okay but what if you find something you don’t like during diligence?
ELON MUSK: If it is just something I don’t like I’d still be required to close. How about we outline reason/events that would justify my termination of the deal? What about your SEC filings? Are they all accurate?
PARAG AGRAWAL: Yes. They are all accurate as of January 1, 2022.
ELON MUSK: Great. How about you represent and warrant that everything in your SEC filings is true and accurate as of January 1, 2022. Over the next six months we’ll conduct our due diligence to confirm the accuracy of the information you’ve provided to the SEC so that we can provide that to our fellow equity investors and lenders - $44 billion is a lot of money so everyone involved will need to do due diligence to feel comfortable closing - the banks will certainly require it as a condition of funding. Okay, so lets plan on closing in November.
PARAG AGRAWAL: Sounds great. Lets sign the deal.
ELON MUSK: Okay, so you’re sure everything in your SEC filings is accurate?
PARAG AGRAWAL: Yes. Please sign the Merger Agreement Elon. Oh and you can’t Tweet mean things about me.
ELON MUSK: I can’t Tweet mean things? I’ll need a discount Parag! I’ll only Tweet my opinions and I won’t disparage you (i.e. by Tweeting things I know to be false). I just faxed you the merger agreement.
PARAG AGRAWAL: Ug. I’m not sure we have a fax machine.
[THREE DAYS LATER]
ELON MUSK: Parag, you just restated the number of users you’ve reported to the SEC for three years - you admit that you overstated the number of users you have in twelve-straight quarterly SEC filings. The restated 10-Q filed with the SEC today shows that you’ve been double-counting users. Just three days ago you signed an agreement with me to sell Twitter representing that the information you’ve provided to the SEC is accurate! You didn’t say anything about this Parag. What is going on?
PARAG AGRAWAL: Elon, it isn’t a big deal. It is just a legal thing we had to do. It isn’t material so it doesn’t count.
ELON MUSK: WTF! Isn’t material? We signed this deal three days ago and you didn’t mention that you’d be restating your user numbers with the SEC admitting you’ve been double counting the number of users for three years! That is a big deal Parag. You’ve literally already busted one of the very few REPRESENTATIONS I insisted on when we signed this deal THREE DAYS AGO. And we’re talking about millions of users per quarter. Damn it Parag.
PARAG AGRAWAL: Elon how can I fix this?
ELON MUSK: Okay we need to dig into your user numbers. How you count them. How you determine how many are bots. Etc.
PARAG AGRAWAL: No problem. We basically have a few people we hire on a contract basis to select 100 users at random and they determine what percentage are bots - they always tell us that the number of bots they find represent <5% of our total users. Does that help?
ELON MUSK: Are you shitting me? You’ve got more than 100 engineers who are experts in artificial intelligence and machine learning and they haven’t built you tools that give you a real-time accounting of users? Instead you rely on a part-time worker you contract to analyze 100 accounts as the basis for you SEC filing that <5% are bots? First, I don’t beleive you. Second, if it is true you literally have no idea how many real users you have. Okay, I will get my data experts to dig in. We will need your user data in real-time so we can built the AI/ML tools you should have already built to count the users.
PARAG AGRAWAL: Okay we can give you our firehose but it won’t have the data you need. We won’t give you the data you need to do the sort of analysis that you want to do. But you still need to give us $44 billion.
ELON MUSK: Screw you. You are in breach of the Merger Agreement.
[31 DAYS LATER]
ELON MUSK: The Merger Agreement gave you 30 days to cure your breach of the Merger Agreement. I count at least four different breaches of the Merger Agreement - none of which you have cured per the terms of the agreement. Given the fact that YOU breached the agreement you’ll need to pay me the $1 billion breakup fee - oh and yes, I’m not buying your company.
PARAG AGRAWAL: No. You have to close no matter what. None of our breaches of the Merger Agreement were ‘material’. Just minor breaches. You have to buy us. I want out of here.
Hope that puts things in perspective...
