[rtkwe]

The person suing got their termination notification on 11/1 so I imaging they know more about what their termination actually entails than you or I do.

Also Musk consistently pushes and oversteps the legal boundaries of what he can and can't do to get his way. Him being in charge of Twitter at all is because he was forced to execute a contract he willingly signed what makes you think he'll be more calmly compliant to laws?

[pb7]

Clearly they don't: https://www.businessinsider.com/read-blunt-email-telling-twi...

[rtkwe]

This appears to only be the emails they sent out to the larger mass firing the originators of the lawsuit might have gotten different ones.

[spoils19]

pb7 is probably correct here, as they are in many things. Elon probably knows what he's doing, you don't get to that level of businessmen without making all the right decisions.

[ceejayoz]

> you don't get to that level of businessmen without making all the right decisions

C'mon; he literally just tried desperately to get out of the Twitter deal that's the direct cause of these layoffs.

Jeff Bezos's decisions about where to stick his weiner cost him tens of billions of dollars.

No one makes "all the right decisions".

[Firmwarrior]

If I may white knight for one of the most powerful men in history for a moment: It's entirely possible that Bezos and his wife just drifted apart over the decades and separated amicably. And half of that fortune was always Mackenzie's from the start, that's how marriage works in the USA.

[ceejayoz]

They announced the divorce one day prior to his having an affair hitting the news cycle.

[bee_rider]

I mean we don't know anything about the internals of their relationship, and "hitting the news cycle is" I guess just some arbitrary hassle from their point of view. We could suppose that they grew distant, they basically separated, he started a new relationship/affair, and then they formalized the divorce.

Regardless, their money was realistically getting split anyway, so the decision of when to start the affair probably didn't cost him anything.

[kodah]

> Jeff Bezos's decisions about where to stick his weiner cost him tens of billions of dollars.

People are allowed to want to divorce without it being referred to as "where he sticks his weiner". I think what grosses me out is that revenge porn was laid thickly on top of this that people just actively ignored.

[pessimizer]

> People are allowed to want to divorce without it being referred to as "where he sticks his weiner".

No they're not. Getting a divorce doesn't give you the right to control how other people talk about your divorce.

> I think what grosses me out is that revenge porn was laid thickly on top of this that people just actively ignored.

People care about revenge porn because it hurts vulnerable people (i.e. the vast majority of us.) People don't give a shit about revenge porn about people who aren't vulnerable in any way.

[kodah]

I'm not a fan of Bezos or his companies but these are objectively shitty takes.

[oska]

> Getting a divorce doesn't give you the right to control how other people talk about your divorce.

Obviously the discussion here is in terms of civility and respecting people's privacy, not 'control'.

[blooalien]

> … "civility and respecting people's privacy" …

God how I wish we still lived in that world…

[paganel]

Not a fan of Bezos by any means imaginable, but I think that the revenge porn thing that happened to him was the work of a state actor, more exactly of Saudi Arabia.

Not saying that that makes it better, quite the contrary, just that most probably it wasn’t something personal, just a raison d’etat thing.

[Domenic_S]

People try and get out of deals all the time. It's a normal part of business.

Edit: I take it many of you haven't been a part of a company that gets an offer that falls apart later, tried to buy/sell property, etc etc. Deals fall apart constantly, trying to get out of a deal isn't indicative of anything meaningful in and of itself. The only really unusual thing that happened in the Twitter deal was Twitter forcing the consummation.

[lovich]

He waived his ability to do due diligence which is part of the normal business process that allows for backing out of a deal, because he was so confident in buying Twitter. Then he almost immediately tried backing out by claiming that things that would have been found out during the due diligence phase were a surprise to him(bots).

It was forced because he left himself open to the deal being forced which was the idiotic mistake

I think we can take it that you haven’t been part of many businesses that actually had to compete and operate with other businesses with equal leverage. The way a business negotiates when it’s getting bought out due to failing investor goals is a lot different than when the two opposing parties have equivalent leverage

[Domenic_S]

He did not claim that bots were a surprise -- in fact, getting rid of bots was the premise of his offer in the first place. His issue with the bots was that he thought there was evidence that there were far more bots than claimed and Twitter was dodging his requests for info. There are some plausible arguments that even outside due diligence that bot problem would be meaningful, like that it's a materially adverse change.

But that's all beside the point. These kind of antics happen all the time in the business world. The buyer threatens to back out, the seller takes them to court, they settle. LVMH & Tiffany comes to mind as a very recent example: it wasn't a due diligence argument there, either.

[JakeTheAndroid]

This is insane. We don't live in a meritocracy. The idea that someone only gets to that level of wealth and business ownership because they make good decisions or understand the laws or requirements isn't something you can demonstrate with any consistency. Deciding to simply trust that he is correct because of his status is a dangerous game to play.

[lovich]

That is a dangerous Calvinist line of thinking. If someone lies/steals/cheats their way to the top, you’d never notice because you are ascribing virtue to the person solely by their success

[baidifnaoxi]

// furiously flips through Wikipedia to remember wth Calvinism was again

[lovich]

It’s a branch of Protestantism, the specific belief of theirs I was referencing was one that can be reduced to believing that the rich are because they are good and god wanted them to be and the poor and destitute are such because they are bad and god is punishing them

Edit: the other poster here has a much better summary, with sources

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33472039

[none_to_remain]

Pray tell, do you consider any other religions dangerous?

[Tangurena2]

Just the Protestant Work Ethic, which is pure Calvinism.

> Central to Calvinist belief was the Elect, those persons chosen by God to inherit eternal life. All other people were damned and nothing could change that since God was unchanging. While it was impossible to know for certain whether a person was one of the Elect, one could have a sense of it based on his own personal encounters with God. Outwardly the only evidence was in the person's daily life and deeds, and success in one's worldly endeavors was a sign of possible inclusion as one of the Elect. A person who was indifferent and displayed idleness was most certainly one of the damned, but a person who was active, austere, and hard-working gave evidence to himself and to others that he was one of God's chosen ones (Tilgher, 1930).

> Calvin taught that all men must work, even the rich, because to work was the will of God. It was the duty of men to serve as God's instruments here on earth, to reshape the world in the fashion of the Kingdom of God, and to become a part of the continuing process of His creation (Braude, 1975). Men were not to lust after wealth, possessions, or easy living, but were to reinvest the profits of their labor into financing further ventures. Earnings were thus to be reinvested over and over again, ad infinitum, or to the end of time (Lipset, 1990). Using profits to help others rise from a lessor level of subsistence violated God's will since persons could only demonstrate that they were among the Elect through their own labor (Lipset, 1990).

> Selection of an occupation and pursuing it to achieve the greatest profit possible was considered by Calvinists to be a religious duty. Not only condoning, but encouraging the pursuit of unlimited profit was a radical departure from the Christian beliefs of the middle ages. In addition, unlike Luther, Calvin considered it appropriate to seek an occupation which would provide the greatest earnings possible. If that meant abandoning the family trade or profession, the change was not only allowed, but it was considered to be one's religious duty (Tilgher, 1930).

http://workethic.coe.uga.edu/hpro.html

[lovich]

You’ll notice I’ll called out the line of thinking, but yes, I could critique many other religions lines of thinking.

Do you believe that any belief is rendered safe solely by being under the umbrella of a religion?

[pessimizer]

Irrational beliefs are the only protected beliefs. If you can prove a belief could be seen as rational, it immediately loses protection.

[none_to_remain]

I think it depends which religion

[pwinnski]

This seems like a troll comment, given how disastrously Musk has handled the Twitter acquisition so far, and how many times he's been in trouble over mishandling things at Tesla and SpaceX.