Greetings. Tekedia Mini-MBA Live continues today. Our faculty is coming from digital category-king and ecommerce pioneer, Amazon USA,  and he will be discussing how to build that MVP (minimum viable product). Join us, and learn how the experts build products that turn customers into FANS.

Yes, it is about fandom through superior products and services. Wale Salami, a Tekedia Institute Faculty and Executive Director of Midlothian Angel Network (they write big cheques to startups), will be teaching one of the most important topics on starting and building companies.

To register for the next edition of Tekedia Institute Mini-MBA, go here . Master the mechanics of building category-king companies from the best faculty in the world. We’re the temple where innovators and project champions learn the physics of entrepreneurial capitalism.

In Igbo tradition, elders will remind villagers that just like Diochi, the palm wine tapper, it is only a fool who tells everything he sees while on top of a palm tree! What that axiom is postulating is this: there are powers you have or things you can say, but sometimes, not saying or exercising that power will serve the society better.

Many centuries ago, in England, a queen in a bid to save the kingdom alive, decided not to reveal to England a major family issue she had with the king. Rather, we described it and put it inside a wall, hoping that whenever the palace was being renovated, someone would know what happened. It was a painful thing for the queen but she, like Diochi, did not want to say everything she saw on top of the palm tree.

That brings me to Elon Musk’s new playbook on Twitter: “Months after Elon Musk made a move to acquire Twitter for $44 billion, the Tesla chief executive said on Friday he is terminating the deal over the social media firm’s inability to provide him with accurate information about the number of fake accounts on its platform.”

People, Elon Musk is not fair to Twitter. He is asking for a solution which may not have an answer: Twitter had told him that bot should be in the range of 5%. But Musk pushed that it was above 20% or so. Twitter gave him a copy of its datasets to make its own call. Magically, Musk’s team could not ascertain. In other words, this is not pure physics because there are REAL humans who are actually bots when you see how they use Twitter!

Elon Musk has tons of money but he needs to behave in better ways. His actions on Twitter should be challenged in the court; as Twitter fades, Tesla valuation is rising as investors believe that he would now focus on Tesla and other empires. But who can tell Twitter small investors that Diochi is abusing his privilege by sharing all the village secrets to everyone? Diochi is a powerful man on that palm tree – he sees women taking baths in the village stream, sees women helping others during childbirth even on the way to farm (Uzoji), etc.

And the community expects him to hold those secrets. Elon Musk and his money must respect society and I support Twitter’s plan to sue him: ‘“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,” tweeted Twitter’s chairman, Bret Taylor. “We are confident we will prevail in the Delaware Court of Chancery.”’

Twitter had maintained that the information it provided to Musk about the number of users on the platform is accurate, and allowing him access to the company’s data as he requested, will mean exposing private data of users. However, the company succumbed last month, allowing Musk access to its “firehose”, a repository of raw data on hundreds of millions of daily tweets.

Musk’s decision to halt the deal means he was not satisfied with the firehose data. But there is belief that the decision may have been informed by pressure from Tesla shareholders. Tesla has lost more than $billions billion since Musk announced his decision to purchase Twitter, prompting the electric vehicle company’s shareholders to take a legal action against the CEO.

[…]

However, while Musk’s decision to back out of the deal will yield good fortune for Tesla and bad one for Twitter, it is going to result in a long legal battle. Tesla’s shares rose 14.51% to close at $752.29 on Friday while Twitter stocks fell 6% in extended trading and it’s expected to plunge further in the coming days.

Of course, Musk is not doing these things because he is the most decent CEO in America. He is simply playing games with micro investors in Twitter. He has got some issues even in Tesla.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has tacitly acknowledged having a romantic relationship with a subordinate employee, conduct that led to forced departures for at least three other high-profile chief executives in recent years and which may have violated Tesla’s own code of conduct, experts say.

Musk silently welcomed twins last November with Shivon Zilis, according to court records obtained by Business Insider. Zilis is currently the director of operations and special projects at Neuralink, which was cofounded by Musk in 2016. Before Neuralink, Zilis also spent two years at Tesla as a project director. “Doing my best to help the underpopulation crisis,” Musk tweeted Thursday, following a report that he had twins from his relationship with Zilis.

From 2017 to August 2019, Zilis was an employee at Tesla. Although it’s not clear when Musk and Zilis began their romantic relationship, if it started while Zilis was at Tesla, it “would be a gross violation” of Tesla’s code of business ethics, says Jeffrey Sonnenfield, senior dean of leadership studies at Yale University.

Comment on LinkedIn Feed

Comment: Just leaving this here before sleeping off. By the way, I saw many Twitter spaces and headlines from major media calling his bid to buy Twitter wrongful etc. Some said there needs to be an instrument created/activated to stop that bid. Not sure there’s any one way to this though…

My Response: That is the Musk’s Way. But as he smiles and laughs, he is destroying retirement accounts of many. I am not sure he understands that. Twitter is a public company and deserves respect.

Months after Elon Musk made a move to acquire Twitter for $44 billion, the Tesla chief executive said on Friday he is terminating the deal over the social media firm’s inability to provide him with accurate information about the number of fake accounts on its platform.

Musk said Twitter’s refusal to provide all information he requested violated part of the deal’s agreement, as it is necessary for the company’s business performance. “Mr. Musk is terminating the Merger 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,” Musk’s lawyers wrote in a letter to Twitter’s Chief Legal Officer Vijaya Gadde.

After purchasing more than 9% Twitter shares in April, Musk had moved for a hostile takeover of the platform in a bid to promote free speech and to make the company more profitable for shareholders.

But the agreement involves Twitter supplying Musk with information on the number of users on the platform. He had threatened to pull out of the deal unless the company provides proof to back up its claim that spam and bot accounts are less than 5%.

Twitter had maintained that the information it provided to Musk about the number of users on the platform is accurate, and allowing him access to the company’s data as he requested, will mean exposing private data of users. However, the company succumbed last month, allowing Musk access to its “firehose”, a repository of raw data on hundreds of millions of daily tweets.

Musk’s decision to halt the deal means he was not satisfied with the firehose data. But there is belief that the decision may have been informed by pressure from Tesla shareholders. Tesla has lost more than $400 billion since Musk announced his decision to purchase Twitter, prompting the electric vehicle company’s shareholders to take a legal action against the CEO.

However, while Musk’s decision to back out of the deal will yield good fortune for Tesla and bad one for Twitter, it is going to result in a long legal battle. Tesla’s shares rose 14.51% to close at $752.29 on Friday while Twitter stocks fell 6% in extended trading and it’s expected to plunge further in the coming days.

Twitter has said in response it is going to take a legal action against Musk.

“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,” tweeted Twitter’s chairman, Bret Taylor. “We are confident we will prevail in the Delaware Court of Chancery.”

The deal’s agreement requires that Musk pay a $1 billion breakup fee, if he opts out the deal – unless Twitter breaches any part of the agreement. Musk has claimed that Twitter’s unwillingness to provide him with accurate data gives him the right to walk away from the deal without having to pay the penalty.

Congratulations Labour Party, you are set now, just as PDP. We’re getting closer to phase two. We hope APC will conclude its own process very soon with the definitive vice presidential aspirant. I expect Obi & Ahmed to make its case just as Atiku & Okowa will do. When Tinubu announces his running mate, we will welcome the duo also.

As that happens, I have a message to all young people: show civility and look unto the future and make the right call. I can promise you that whoever becomes the President of Nigeria will have zero impact in my life and those of my generation; Nigeria settled us very well. But at your time, Nigeria is weak, dysfunctional and largely lost. But there is an opportunity for a new beginning; you all can architect that future.

To get that future, avoid the tribalization of this important national mission. The politicians are seeding problems with some devilish statements. That an Umuahia boy is excited about Obi does not mean he is doing so because Obi is from the Southeast. He is a fan of Obi because he finds vision in Obi. If a Yoruba boy is excited about Tinubu, respect that. I expect you to respect Atiku’s supporters also. Understand that Nigeria’s challenges are not tribalized or regionalized; everyone’s a victim. But we can all be winners if we make the right decisions.

More than 70% of your senior political leaders do not use the Nigerian healthcare system. And their children do not attend our universities. And when they graduate, they now import them into CBN, LNG, etc which have “dollarized” certificates – yes, foreign degrees are superior and they cut you out! Sure – I get those privileges myself and that is the revealing aspect. Get your PVC so that when the election time comes, you will be ready to  change the future. 

See this election as destiny-reshaping. You are all smart young people; I expect you all to get your PVC and make the right call. A few years ago, I went to my former school’s hospital and saw a sitting Nigerian president in the waiting room; possibly he came for a routine check and was waiting for a nurse.

Get your PVC, you cannot miss the 2023 project!