Thursday, November 17, 2022

We're in your inbox later than usual because of another busy news day! John Malone speaks, Roku is reducing staff, Tara Palmeri is vindicated, Meta's manipulation, The Daily Wire's milestone, and Taylor Swift's Ticketmaster troubles. But first, the A1.

THE A1

Twitter's Last Gasp

CNN Photo Illustration/Obtained by CNN

Death is in the air on Twitter.

On the platform Thursday evening, where #RIPTwitter was the top trend worldwide, users wrote what they feared might be their last posts, offering apprehensive goodbyes and listing the other (more stable) social media platforms where they can still be found.

They were reacting to the dire news emanating from inside Twitter. Scores of remaining employees at the social media company on Thursday appeared to reject owner Elon Musk's ultimatum to work "extremely hardcore," throwing the communications platform into utter disarray and raising serious questions about about how much longer it will survive.

Inside the company's Slack, I'm told that a mass resignation effectively occurred after Musk's 5pm deadline for employees to arrive at a decision passed. Hundreds of staffers appear to have called it quits, accepting Musk's offer to exit in exchange for three months of severance.

Employees flooded the "#social-watercooler" channel with the salute emoji (a screen grab of which I obtained and you can see above), indicating that they had chosen not to sign Musk's pledge. A similar series of events unfolded in the Slack channel earlier this month as Musk eliminated roughly 50% of the company's then 7,500-person workforce.

A former Twitter executive, who recently exited the company, described the situation to me as a "mass exodus." Asked about the situation, the former executive told me, "Elon is finding out that he can't bully top senior talent. They have lots of options and won't put up with his antics."

"They will struggle just to keep the lights on," the former executive added.

That assessment was universally shared by the other half dozen current and former employees whom I spoke with on Thursday. It was already bad enough after Musk executed mass layoffs at the company earlier this month. So bad, you'll remember, Twitter asked some of the people it had let go to come back just days later. The state-of-play has only become more dire since then.

In fact, Twitter management was in panic mode hours before the deadline passed, people familiar with the matter told me, explaining that senior leaders were "scrambling" to convince talent to stay at the company.

Musk himself seemed to finally realize grim state of affairs, sending an all-staff email relaxing his previously uncompromising anti-remote work position. "Regarding remote work, all that is required for approval is that your manager takes responsibility for ensuring that you are making an excellent contribution," Musk said in the email.

It didn't appear to do much good.

Two employees who I spoke to on Thursday whom had decided to reject Musk's ultimatum were quite clear in why they were doing so. "I don't want to stick around to build a product that's being poisoned from the inside and out," one said, adding later that he felt god about making a decision "in line with what I stand for."

A recently laid off employee who remains in touch with former coworkers added to me, "People don't want to sacrifice their mental health and family lives to make the richest man in the world richer."

And Twitter seemed to grasp the mess on its hands Thursday evening, sending an email to staff notifying them it has once again shuttered all of its offices and suspended employee badge access, presumably to protect its systems and data.

Twitter's already decimated communications department didn't respond to requests for comment. But Musk nodded to the situation in a tweet.

"How do you make a small fortune in social media?" Musk asked. "Start out with a large one."

THE SIDEBAR

"I know of six critical systems (like 'serving tweets' levels of critical) which no longer have any engineers," an ex Twitter employee told WaPo. "There is no longer even a skeleton crew manning the system. It will continue to coast until it runs into something, and then it will stop." (WaPo)
Platformer's Zoë Schiffer: "The designers leading Elon Musk's Blue verified project are out, along with the lead web engineer. Many Twitter employees who maintained critical infrastructure have resigned. This is going to look like a very different company tomorrow." (Twitter)
"Multiple 'critical' engineering teams inside Twitter have now either completely or near-completely resigned, Alex Heath reported, citing sources, adding that "the team that maintains Twitter's core system libraries" is also gone. (The Verge)
News of Twitter mayhem was the top story on The NYT's homepage Thursday night. (NYT)
The chaos at Twitter has caught the attention of lawmakers, with seven Democratic senators asking the FTC to probe the company. (Reuters)
The latest restriction on Musk's paid checkmark scheme: new Twitter accounts won't be able to buy Blue verification for 90 days. (The Verge)
A group of 180 organizations have called on Musk to combat anti-Semitism on the social media platform after "unrelenting harassment." (Mediaite)
Meanwhile, at Musk's other businesses... This NYT headline: SpaceX Employees Say They Were Fired for Speaking Up About Elon Musk (NYT)

——— BELOW THE FOLD ———

CNN Photo Illustration/Carolyn Kaster/AP

Palmeri's Vindication: On Monday, Puck's Tara Palmeri scooped that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had arrived at the decision to not seek re-election for Democratic leadership. Palmeri cited a source with "direct knowledge" of the matter. The report got under the skin of Drew Hammill, Pelosi's spokesperson and deputy chief of staff. Hammill erupted on Twitter, mocking Palmeri as someone who has "zero sourcing in Pelosi world" and publishes "complete trash."

Fast forward just a few days and Palmeri's scoop was born out. Palmeri broke the news Thursday morning that Pelosi would announce she was not running for leadership and it was, of course, confirmed when Pelosi made that announcement just hours later. "It feels good," Palmeri told me by phone Thursday when I asked how it felt to be vindicated. I asked her specifically about Hammill's tirade against her. "When you don't know the information yourself, you probably feel you're not in control," Palmeri said. "And that's a problem. And so he took it out on me. I don't know why but I knew the whole time my sourcing was correct and this is part of the job." Palmeri added that she was "not going to be bulled in any way and that's what he was trying to do."

I reached out to Hammill by email for comment. I didn't hear back, but on Twitter Thursday he continued to attack Palmeri, pointing to other details in her story that he said were wrong. "Tara routinely doesn't include quotes from me that contradict her stories," Hammill tweeted. "This time, Tara guessed and wants praise for a scoop." In response, Palmeri told me, "I'm not psychic."

Behind the Scenes: I asked CNN's Manu Raju for his behind-the-scenes point of view. "This morning, mobs of reporters hovered around the doors where she typically enters the Capitol," Raju emailed. "I was outside the Democratic whips meeting that she usually attends on Thursdays, thinking perhaps she might tip her hand in some way there. But she arrived late, didn't go to the Democratic meeting and refused to talk to reporters on her way in -- again keeping people guessing. After she made her announcement on the House floor, that's when it became a mad dash to get reaction from members around the chamber and report out the leadership succession to follow."

► "Yes, it was a historic day," Raju added. "But the long stakeouts, working sources to get a nugget of news and chasing down members really amounts to nothing more than just another day in the life of a Capitol Hill reporter."

THE BUSINESS

CNN Photo Illustration/Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Roku's Reduction: Layoffs have hit Roku. The streaming platform said Thursday that it will cut about 7% of its workforce, representing roughly 200 jobs. "Due to the current economic conditions in our industry, we have made the difficult decision to reduce Roku's headcount expenses by a projected 5%, to slow down our opex growth rate," the company said in a statement. "This will affect approximately 200 employee positions in the U.S. Taking these actions now will allow us to focus our investments on key strategic priorities to drive future growth and enhance our leadership position." The Verge's Mitchell Clark has details here.

Malone Speaks: Liberty Chairman John Malone spoke to CNBC's David Faber for a lengthy interview that aired Thursday. The industry titan and influential Warner Bros. Discovery (CNN's parent company) shareholder made news on a number of fronts. Here are some highlights:

► On the ad-market: "We're definitely going into a very slow, dramatically slower ad market as people are anticipating the future and starting to cut back on their ad budgets."

► On streaming: "At the moment, there is a lot of blood flowing down the gutters of people who are streaming. Some of them can afford it, and some of them can't."

► On sports rights: "The history of using sports as locomotive or as a marketing tool, you know, has a long history in our business and I suspect that it will be experimented with by the Apples and the Amazons to see how sticky it is ... The leagues are gonna have to be careful, they don't want to end up with a very high price premium service with no reach."

► On Warner Bros. Discovery: "Whenever I talk to David [Zaslav], the first word out of my mouth is manage your cash. This is going to be a business that one should keep a very clear vision on, on cash generation. That will ultimately be the metric that David's success or failure will be judged on."

► On CNN: "I have met Chris [Licht] the new head of CNN once. I was quite impressed that he saw it sort of the way the board saw it. That being in the global news business, you needed to make sure that news portion of your programming ... should be extremely trustworthy, solid, not spun, not manipulated in any way. ... And the company can even have an editorial policy ... They need to separate it from the hard journalism. And I would love to see the core of it be hard journalism. And CNN has some great journalists. So none of this was ever an attack on the vast majority of journalists that work at CNN."

IN THE INDUSTRY

CNN CEO Chris Licht talks to Kara Swisher (listen to the pod here), covering significant ground on several subjects. "We are not going to be a 24/7 Trump news network," Licht said about the network's strategy on covering the former president. (Vanity Fair)
Condé Nast CEO Roger Lynch talks with Alex Weprin for a wide-ranging interview. Lynch says that the company expects an economic slowdown, but notes that Condé's advertisers "are fashion and luxury houses" whose businesses remain "very strong." (THR)
New CBS Entertainment chief Amy Reisenbach emails staff: "I want to let you in on my mantra. Despite what you may have read or heard; BROADCAST IS NOT DEAD." (Deadline)
Audie Cornish spoke to Rivea Ruff about her new podcast, "The Assignment." Cornish said she "wanted to do interviews that felt intimate" and that "embrace the kind of political messiness of the moment. (Essence)

MEDIA MOVES

It's official: Steven Ginsberg, a top editor at the Washington Post, will be The Athletic's first executive editor. (NYT)
Haley Britzky departs Task & Purpose, joining CNN as a national security writer. (Twitter)
HBO/HBO Max EVP and head of communications Karen Jones is exiting the company after 23 years. (Variety)

THE VALLEY

CNN Photo Illustration/Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images

Meta Manipulation: Facebook's parent company "has fired or disciplined more than two dozen employees and contractors over the last year whom it accused of improperly taking over user accounts, in some cases allegedly for bribes," The WSJ's Kirsten Grind and Robert McMillan reported Thursday. The duo reported that "as part of the alleged abuse of the system, Meta says that in some cases workers accepted thousands of dollars in bribes from outside hackers to access user accounts." Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said the company will "keep taking appropriate action against those involved in these kinds of schemes."

TOO MANY TABS

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy says layoffs will continue into next year. (CNN)
Facebook will remove religious and political views, addresses, and sexual preferences from user profiles on Dec. 1 amid privacy concerns. (Gizmodo)
Sam Bankman-Fried will be the subject of a new documentary from Vice Media and The Information. (THR)
YouTube and FIFA have partnered to promote the World Cup. (Variety)

THE INFO WARS

Barack Goes To Bat: Former President Obama warned Thursday the focus on culture wars in an increasingly diverse world is impacting politics and democracies across the globe. "We're going to have to figure out how to live together, or we will destroy each other," he said in his keynote speech at The Obama Foundation Democracy Forum. The former president called out "escalating polarization and disinformation so evident in recent elections" occurred in the US, as well as Brazil, the Philippines, Italy and Sweden. He also argued conflicts around culture are exacerbated by media and the way people self-select the kind of media they consume. CNN's Dan Merica has more.

The Daily Wire's Milestone: The right-wing media outlet The Daily Wire has surpassed 1 million paid subscribers, the company disclosed Thursday. "One million active subscribers makes us one of the most successful conservative media companies of all time," co-CEO Jeremy Boreing said in a statement. The company is projecting $200 million in revenue by the end of the year, about double its revenue from last year.

IN THE BATTLEFIELD

Meanwhile: The Daily Wire has also said Thursday that it has optioned film and TV rights for Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged." (Deadline)
Matt Gertz points out that Fox News "coverage of violent crime dropped after the midterms." And not just a small drop. A 63% drop. (MMFA)
Newsmax appears to be trying to get MAGA conservatives to move on from the election, pushing back on Kevin Sorbo's "fraud" claim. (Daily Beast)

CURTAIN CALL

CNN Photo Illustration/Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images

Trouble, Trouble, Trouble: Bad news for Swifties: In a stunning announcement, Ticketmaster said that it has canceled Friday's public ticket sales for Taylor Swift's "Eras Tour." The company cited "extraordinarily high demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet that demand." A "record number of fans," it said, wanted tickets and "never before has a Verified Fan on sale sparked so much attention." CNN's Jordan Valinsky and Frank Pallotta have details.

🔎 Zooming in: The Ticketmaster spectacle has now caught the attention of lawmakers. Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar said in a letter to Ticketmaster's CEO that she has "serious concerns" about the company. The situation has renewed calls for Ticketmaster and Live Nation to be split.

OFF STAGE

In other Taylor Swift news: The singer has topped more than 50 million YouTube subscribers. (Variety)
Bradley Cooper will play Frank Bullitt in Steven Spielberg's new film. (THR)
iHeart Radio will stream its "Jingle Ball" 2022 in 75 IMAX theaters. (Deadline)
A new documentary from Kelsey Darragh will examine BuzzFeed's rise. (Variety)

Thank you for reading! This newsletter was edited by Jon Passantino. Have feedback? Send us an email here. We will be back in your inbox next week.