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A senior Twitter executive has been caught mocking Elon Musk for having Asperger’s, in a video where he also hit out at free speech.
Alex Martinez, a lead client partner, was secretly recorded condemning the Tesla billionaire – who could be his next boss – to an undercover reporter at a bar.
He claimed the entrepreneur is ‘literally special needs… so I can’t even take what you’re saying seriously’ during the lengthy conversation, adding: ‘He’s a loony tune.’
Martinez showed the Project Veritas operative an email from Twitter’s corporate security, warning of such sting operations. ‘Like they’re trying to go on dates with them, like this,’ Martinez explained.
‘And then record them and then go sell it to the New York Times and say: ‘This is what the Twitter employee just said.’ Like this is what is really happening. ‘Lucky I met you organically, or I would be questioning you.’
He also slammed Musk’s attempts to bring free speech back to the platform as he claimed advertisers were ‘freaking out’ over what it could mean for the social media giant.
But the 50-year-old billionaire spotted the video online and quickly hit back at Martinez’s comments, saying: ‘Twitter exec trashing free speech & mocking people with Asperger’s.’
The footage comes a day after another unsuspecting employee was duped into revealing what happens at the tech firm.
Senior engineer Siru Murugesan was recorded saying the company culture is extremely far left where workers are ‘commie as f**k’ and they ‘hate, hate, hate’ Musk’s $44billion takeover.
The two videos come amid a firestorm at Twitter as staff fear they will face the ax or be stopped from censoring certain content when the Tesla founder takes over.
Musk has vowed to return the platform to a safe space for users to post what they want as well as ‘defeat the spam bots’ and ‘authenticate all humans’.
Meanwhile he fueled speculation he could be seeking to negotiate paying less for the social media giant as he told a Miami conference an agreement at a lower price wouldn’t be ‘out of the question’.
Alex Martinez, a lead client partner at Twitter, was caught on camera mocking Elon Musk – who has agreed a deal to buy the company – for having Asperger’s
Martinez was also filmed undercover discussing censorship at Twitter
Martinez also said that Elon Musk – who last month agreed a deal to buy Twitter – was ‘literally special needs’
Elon Musk on Tuesday reacted with shock and anger to a senior Twitter employee mocking him, tweeting: ‘Twitter exec trashing free speech & mocking people with Asperger’s …’
Martinez was recorded by an operative for Project Veritas.
He said: ‘Elon Musk has Asperger’s. So he’s special. You’re literally special needs. So I can’t even take what you’re saying seriously.’
In the video, Martinez criticizes Musk’s vision of free speech on the platform.
‘The rest of us who have been here believe in something that’s good for the planet, and not just to give people free speech,’ Martinez said.
Asked whether people inside Twitter were trying to thwart Musk’s takeover, Martinez replied that there would be revolt against the billionaire’s changes.
‘He might try to but there are people… There are people that are going to try to push back as much as they can, because we are doing… the rest of us who have been here believe in something that is good for the planet, and not just to give people free speech,’ he said.
He also discussed censorship on Twitter, saying: ‘People don’t know how to make a rational decision if you don’t put out – correct things that are supposed to be out in the public, right?’
And he was disparaging about the motivation of Twitter’s leaders Parag Agrawal, the CEO, and Jack Dorsey, the co-founder and former CEO, who still sits on the board.
‘At the end of the day, I think the real truth – that they can’t ever say – is that it’s all about money. That it’s all about money, and making all these money. Parag, Jack, the board members, everyone gets paid,’ said Martinez.
‘Elon gets like tax benefits. Doesn’t have to pay taxes forever. Everything. Like it’s all like a money, s***, greed, America.’
Twitter are yet to respond to DailyMail.com’s request for comment.
On Monday, another Project Veritas sting saw a senior engineer at Twitter admit the social media giant has a strong left-wing bias and they routinely censor conservatives.
Murugesan was recorded saying the company culture is extremely far left where workers are ‘commie as f**k’ and they ‘hate, hate, hate’ Elon Musk’s $44billion takeover.
In a shockingly frank conversation, filmed over several encounters, he said the firm ‘does not believe in free speech’ and even started to turn him left-wing when he joined.
Siru Murugesan, described by Project Veritas as a senior engineer at Twitter, has been caught on camera by an undercover operative admitting the company has a left-wing bias, does not believe in free speech, and that staffers ‘hate’ Elon Musk
Murugesan said that staff at Twitter ‘hate’ Musk’s takeover, and described them as ‘super left, left, left, left, left’
The engineer said that Musk ‘believes in free speech’ – unlike many others at Twitter
Murugesan told the undercover reporter that ‘there is bias’ at Twitter against right-wing figures
Murugesan was filmed by a female Project Veritas journalist spilling the beans on the tech giant’s left-wing agenda, including they censor right wing posts.
‘Twitter does not believe in free speech,’ he said, adding that his co-workers ‘hated’ Musk’s $44 billion bid to take control of the company.
‘They hate it,’ he said. ‘Oh my God. I’m at least like okay with it. But some of my colleagues are like super left, left, left, left, left.’
Asked how his co-workers responded to the news of Musk’s buyout, Murugesan replied: ‘They’re like, ‘this would be my last day if this happens’.’
Murugesan said Twitter’s office politics were so left-leaning they shaped his own views, and changed him. Like I started working at Twitter and became left,’ he said.
‘I think it’s just like the environment, like you’re there and you become like this commie.’ Murugesan said that right-wingers were openly censored.
‘Ideologically, it does not make sense like, because we’re actually censoring the right, and not the left,’ he told the undercover reporter.
‘So, everyone on the right wing will be like, ‘bro, it’s okay to stay, just gotta tolerate it.’ ‘The left will be like, no, I’m not gonna tolerate it. I need it censored or else I’m not gonna be on the platform.
‘So, it does that on the right. It’s true. There is bias. It is what it is today,’ said Murugesan.
Musk himself has frequently complained about a left-wing bias on Twitter, noting that right-wing figures like Donald Trump and Steve Bannon are banned while extremists on the other side are allowed to remain.
Murugesan said ‘a lot has changed’ since Musk began the takeover process on April 25. He said employees were worried for their jobs, because his companies run differently to Twitter’s ‘socialist’ workplace.
‘You know, our jobs are at stake,’ he said. ‘He’s a capitalist and we weren’t really operating as capitalists, more like very socialist. Like we’re all commie as f***.’
Murugesan said that Twitter’s work culture was ‘socialist’ and ‘commie as f***’ – in contrast to Musk’s strong capitalist instinct
The engineer told the undercover reporter that many of his colleagues were up in arms at Musk’s proposed takeover
Murugesan said the company’s operating procedures were extremely lax.
‘Essentially like everyone gets to do whatever they want, no one really cares about like [operating expenses], like capitalists, they care about numbers or care about how to make the business more efficient,’ he said.
‘But in Twitter, it’s like mental health is everything, like if you are not feeling it, you can take a few days off. People have taken months off, they will come back.
‘But you always like, like do your best at any time. And that’s the culture and you know we’ll run the business as much as possible. But at the same time, you know, like the profits weren’t a lot.’
Murugesan said that many staffers had openly tried to thwart the takeover, worried in particular about Musk’s promise to reinstate people like Trump.
Critics warn that it will see a surge in hate speech on the platform; supporters say it is an important move for free speech. ‘We did all we could, to like revolt against it,’ said Murugesan. ‘A lot of employees revolted against it.
‘But at the end of the day, [the] board of directors have the say, and then they acted on their best interests cause they didn’t wanna get sued.
Leslie Berland, the chief marketing officer, read out questions submitted by Twitter staff
The day that Musk’s takeover was announced – April 25 – Twitter employees warned of a ‘mass exodus’ of staff, with one participant at an ‘All Hands’ meeting describing the world’s richest man as ‘a person with questionable ethics’.
Staff were invited to the meeting via videolink, hosted by CEO Parag Agrawal and Bret Taylor, the chair of the board.
Questions submitted by staff during the 45-minute meeting were read out by the chief marketing officer, Leslie Berland.
One question asked, in another recording obtained by Project Veritas, was: ‘How does the board and Mr Musk plan on dealing with a mass exodus considering the acquisition is by a person with questionable ethics?’
Taylor replied that ‘one of the themes of today is continuity’.
He said: ‘The question of attrition: As Parag stated, one of the themes of today is continuity, and ensuring that Parag and this leadership team continues to operate the business successfully on behalf of our users, on behalf of our customers, and that has obviously been a big topic of discussion at the board.
‘And as I mentioned, an area that is important to Elon Musk as well, because of the importance of Twitter as a service.’
Agrawal said he had seen many questions about the process, about share schemes, and about working conditions in the future. He said much was still to be clarified.
He said he would try and arrange a staff forum with Musk, and said that he would remain at the company as CEO, at least until the deal was finalized.
‘He wants Twitter to be a powerful, positive force in the world, just like all of us,’ Agrawal said of Musk.
‘He believes Twitter matters.’
He urged employees to ‘operate Twitter as we always have,’ adding that ‘how we run the company, the decisions we make and the positive changes we drive — that will be on us, and under our control.’
Twitter employees are sharing their concerns in internal chatrooms, messages seen by the New York Post show.
‘We’re all going through the five stages of grief in cycles and everyone’s nerves are frazzled,’ one senior staff software engineer reportedly wrote on the company’s internal Slack channel.
The staffer called Musk an ‘a**hole,’ and tried to console his colleagues. ‘We’re all spinning our wheels, and coming up with worst case scenarios (Trump returns! No more moderation!).
‘The fact is that [Musk] has not talked about what he’s planning on doing in any detail outside of broad sweeping statements that could be easily seen as hyperbolic showboating,’ he added.
One site reliability engineer wrote that it was ‘physically cringy watching Elon talk about free speech.’
A senior staff video engineer announced his plans to quit, saying: ‘Not the place to say it perhaps, but I will not work for this company after the takeover.’
The employee unrest begun as soon as Musk’s successful takeover was confirmed.
‘I feel like im going to throw up..I rly don’t wanna work for a company that is owned by Elon Musk,’ one staffer said, according to New York Times reporter Talmon Smith.
Smith’s source told him that it was ‘absolutely insane’ in the internal chat rooms.
Another Twitter employee reportedly complained: ‘I don’t rly know what I’m supposed to do…oh my god, my phone’s been blowing up…We have a meeting about it at 5pm…the CEO is going to address everyone about it’ (it=elon).
‘I hate him, why does he even want this?’
Musk vowed to protect free speech on Twitter, ‘defeat the spam bots’ and ‘authenticate all humans’ as he welcomed the acquisition.
He also revealed he planned to ‘enhance the product with new features’ and ‘make the algorithms open source to increase trust’.
But within the company, there was turmoil at the announcement.
‘I feel like he’s this petulant little boy and that he’s doing this to troll…he doesn’t know anything about our policies and what we do…his statement about our algo was f****** insane…
‘Were just gonna let everyone run amok?…nobody knows,’ the employee said, according to the New York Times.
Some Twitter staff were ‘openly rebelling’ against Musk, one observer noted, posting a screen shot of Twitter’s official Github site and posting a public response entitled ‘The Algorithm’ – with zero code.
On Thursday, the internal unrest at Twitter continued, with Parag Agrawal, the CEO, announcing leadership changes and a hiring freeze.
On Friday morning, Musk threw his Twitter takeover bid into chaos by tweeting that the deal was ‘temporarily on hold’ while he investigated the prevalence of fake and spam accounts on the social media site.
Musk said he was still committed to the $44 billion purchase of the social media company pending an investigation into how many spam accounts are on the site
Elon Musk, pictured at the Met Gala with his mother Maye, has joked that ‘owning the libs’ isn’t cheap after claiming to put his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter on hold
Analysts as well as insiders widely believe that Musk’s tweets on Friday were an attempt to gain leverage and negotiate a lower price for his takeover, which has been approved by Twitter’s board but won’t close for several months.
Even Donald Trump, commenting on his Truth Social platform on Friday, suggested that Musk is looking to negotiate a better deal to buy Twitter after agreeing to pay $54.20 per share.
The former US president said the only reason the Tesla CEO had not called off the Twitter deal yet was because of the $1 billion break-up fee.
‘There is no way Elon Musk is going to buy Twitter at such a ridiculous price, especially since realizing it is a company largely based on BOTS or Spam Accounts,’ Trump wrote as he added jabs at the rival social media company.
‘If it weren’t for the ridiculous Billion Dollar breakup fee, Elon would have already been long gone,’ he added.
Former President Donald Trump was among many who speculated that Musk put the buyout on hold in the hopes of negotiating a better deal
Analysts as well as insiders widely believe that Musk’s tweets on Friday were an attempt to gain leverage and negotiate a lower price for his takeover
This week, Musk has also sparked fierce debate after saying he would allow Trump back on Twitter if and when he takes the reins, in line with his previous declarations that he planned to err on the side of free speech rather than bans and censorship.
Trump has repeatedly stated that he has no plan to go back to Twitter after he was removed from the platform following the January 6 Capitol riot.
Markets have plunged since the deal was approved on April 25, making Twitter’s valuation under the terms seem ever richer in comparison to similar companies.
Musk’s tweet on Friday claiming the deal was on hold had the effect of sending Twitter shares plunging, and boosting Tesla stock, which he is using as collateral to finance the deal, in effect putting Musk in a much stronger negotiating position.
The spread between the offer price and the value of Twitter shares had widened in recent days, implying less than a 50 percent chance of completion, as investors speculated that the downturn would prompt Musk to walk away or seek a lower price.
‘Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users,’ Musk told his more than 92 million Twitter followers on Friday morning.
‘To find out, my team will do a random sample of 100 followers’ of the microblogging site, Musk tweeted, inviting others to repeat the process and ‘see what they discover.’
‘If we collectively try to figure out the bot/duplicate user percentage, we can probably crowdsource a good answer.’
Musk tweeted he had ‘relied upon the accuracy of Twitter’s public filings’ in reply to a follower who asked why he had not thought of this before offering to buy the company.
Under the terms of Musk’s contract with Twitter, he is entitled to ask the company for information on its operations following the signing of the deal.
But this is meant to help him prepare for his ownership of Twitter, not to carry out due diligence and reopen negotiations.
Twitter is planning no immediate action against Musk as a result of Musk’s comment, people familiar with the matter said.
The company considered the comment disparaging and a violation of the terms of their deal contract, but was encouraged by Musk subsequently tweeting he was committing to the acquisition, the sources added.
Musk came to Twitter’s office for a meeting on May 6 as part of the transaction planning process, a Twitter spokesperson said.
Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal also weighed in, tweeting: ‘While I expect the deal to close, we need to be prepared for all scenarios.’
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