'He's in our hearts': Family and friends still seek answers one year after Nathan Wise’s disappearance
It’s been a year since Nathan Wise went missing and his family is no closer to finding out what happened to him.
Newly disclosed text messages between Elon Musk and Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal showed that the two men briefly bonded in the spring over their love of engineering - at least until Musk publicly tweeted this message early on April 9: ` Is Twitter dying? ”'
That soured a relationship that appeared to bloom around the time Twitter offered the billionaire Tesla CEO a board seat after learning that he had purchased a huge stake in the company. In the texts, Agrawal questioned Musk about his public criticism of Twitter, describing the comments as unhelpful and distracting within the company.
“What did you get done this week?” Musk tersely responded less than a minute later. “I'm not joining the board. This is a waste of time. Will make an offer to take Twitter private.”
The messages revealed in Delaware court filings ahead of a high-stakes trial offer a window into Twitter's delicate negotiations with Musk. At the time, the billionaire had not only invested heavily in Twitter shares, he was publicly proposing ideas for improving it or starting an alternative.
Twitter and Musk are due in court Oct. 17 for a trial that will decide whether the world's richest man will be forced to complete his agreed-to $44 billion acquisition of Twitter. The documents were first revealed on chancery-daily, a Twitter account that closely follows the Delaware Chancery Court, where the five-day trial will take place.
“I have a ton of ideas, but lmk if I'm pushing too hard,” Musk texted Agrawal on April 7, shortly after Twitter offered him the board seat. “I just want Twitter to be maximum amazing.”
Agrawal invited Musk to “treat me like an engineer” instead of a CEO as they worked through technical questions together. At one point, Musk wrote, “I love our conversations!”
Two days after the blowup about Musk's “Twitter dying” tweet, on April 11, Agrawal announced Musk would not be joining the board after all. On April 14, Twitter revealed in a securities filing that Musk had offered to buy the company outright for about $44 billion. After first trying to thwart the hostile takeover, Twitter ended up agreeing to the deal on April 25.
The text exchanges were included in redacted documents that Musk lawyers filed early Thursday after challenging a Twitter claim that they couldn't be made public because they contained sensitive information. Several of the “public versions” of those Twitter documents contain wholesale redactions and are almost entirely blacked out. The documents containing the Musk and Agrawal texts, by contrast, were not.
The collection of text messages also includes Musk's conversations with Jack Dorsey, a Twitter co-founder and former CEO. Dorsey was enthusiastic about Musk's involvement, telling him that while the board was “terrible,” Agrawal was an “incredible engineer.”
The texts also include Musk's opinions on Twitter with a host of people in his orbit, including podcaster Joe Rogan, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, venture capitalists and Musk's own brother.
While the lawyers tussle over which documents will be allowed as trial evidence, more witnesses are showing up for depositions.
Among those deposed Thursday was whistleblower Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, a former Twitter security chief who testified to Congress earlier this month about what he described as Twitter's weak cyber defenses. Musk's legal team hopes Zatko's knowledge about Twitter's problems with fake and spam accounts will bolster Musk's key argument for terminating the deal.
Musk could be deposed as early as next week.
--
O'Brien reported from Providence, Rhode Island.
It’s been a year since Nathan Wise went missing and his family is no closer to finding out what happened to him.
Dozens of Ontarians are expressing frustration in the province’s health-care system after their family doctors either dropped them as patients or threatened to after they sought urgent care elsewhere.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
Amazon's paid subscription service provides free delivery for online shopping across Canada except for remote locations, the company said in an email. While customers in Iqaluit qualify for the offer, all other communities in Nunavut are excluded.
The fire burning near Fort McMurray grew from 25 hectares to 5,500 hectares over the weekend.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin began a Cabinet shakeup on Sunday, proposing the replacement of Sergei Shoigu as defence minister as he begins his fifth term in office.
Police are searching for a male suspect after a man was “slashed in neck” on Sunday morning in downtown Toronto and died.
There were some scary moments for several people on a northern Ontario highway caught on video Thursday after a chain reaction following a truck fire.
Health Canada announced various product recalls this week, including electric adapters, armchairs, cannabis edibles and vehicle components.
English, history, entertainment, math and geography: high school trivia teams could be quizzed on any of it when they compete at the Reach for the Top Nationals in Ottawa in June.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
A family of fifth generation farmers from Ituna, Sask. are trying to find answers after discovering several strange objects lying on their land.
A Listowel, Ont. man, drafted by the Hamilton Tigercats last week, is also getting looks from the NFL, despite only playing 27 games of football in his life.
The threat of zebra mussels has prompted the federal government to temporarily ban watercraft from a Manitoba lake popular with tourists.
A small Ajax dessert shop that recently received a glowing review from celebrity food critic Keith Lee is being forced to move after a zoning complaint was made following the social media influencer’s visit last month.
The Canada Science and Technology Museum is inviting visitors to explore their poop. A new exhibition opens at the Ottawa museum on Friday called, 'Oh Crap! Rethinking human waste.'
The Regina Police Service says it is the first in Saskatchewan and possibly Canada to implement new technology in its detention facility that will offer real-time monitoring of detainees’ vital health metrics.
Just as she had feared, a restaurant owner from eastern Quebec who visited Montreal had her SUV stolen, but says it was all thanks to the kindness of strangers on the internet — not the police — that she got it back.