Sanctions were applied after the social media platform delayed compliance with a federal search warrant that required Twitter to hand over Donald Trump’s Twitter data without telling the former president about the warrant for 180 days.
The purpose of a fine is to get compliance, not to punish. The fine was $50,000, doubling every day. So $350,00 dollars means Musk caved after 3 days. Pretty effective tactic by the court.
Uhh, how does a 50k fine that doubles each day come out to 350k?
Day 1: 50,000. Day 2: 100,000. Day 3: 200,000. Day 4: 400,000…
We skipped right over 350…
The violation is committed every 24h. You do not get a bonus/discount for waiting out. It is added to your already amassed fine. The way you count would mean, that on day 5, they would get a ~50% discount in the fine (paying only 800K instead of the amassed 1.55M)
Day 1: 50K -> 50K = 50K locked in
Day 2: 100K -> 100K + 1st day 50K = 150K locked in
Day 3: 200K -> 200K + 2nd day 100K + 1st day 50K = 350K locked in
Day 4: 400K -> 400K + 3rd day 200K + 2nd day 100K + 1st day 50K = 750K locked in
Day 5: 800K -> 800K + 4th day 400K + 3rd day 200K + 2nd day 100K + 1st day 50K = 1.550.000K locked in
…
Day 6: 1.6M = 3.15M
Day 7: 3.2M = 6.35M
Day 8: 6.4M = 12.75M
Day 9: 12.8M = 25.55M
Day 10: 25.6M = 51.15M
Day 11: 51.2M = 102.35M
Day 12: 102.4M = 204.75M
Day 13: 204.8M = 409.55M
Day 14: 409.6M = 819.15M
Day 15: 819.2M = 1.638B
That’s like fining you or I a penny. It’s so ridiculously inconsequential to Musk.
If he’d held out one more day it would have been 700k. 2 more days, 1.4M. 3 more, 2.8M.
i.e. Musk caved before it became consequential.
1.4B if he’d waited 2 weeks more. 23.4T (that’s Trillion) if he wanted to shield Trump for a month. I’d say it was a heavy fine that worked as intended.
Someone check my math.
Until fines become wealth based, it will always be a poor people tax.
If cash flow is the issue, then start taking stocks.
Inconsequential for Musk sure, but not Twitter. Twitter is a company that didn’t make money, lost half of its ad revenue, can’t afford to pay its rent, can’t afford to pay its cloud providers, and was saddled with huge debts that have $1b in interest annually. The clock is ticking for Twitter.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
350k is a slap. Criminal charges should be made agaist leaders who ordered the delays.
It was doubling every day. They were scared of day 15 where it would’ve been 780mil for the day and over 1.562billion total.
Every day doubling is a really good consequence, the fact that it only took twitter 3 days to comply once the penalty started actually hitting should confirm that
Seems fair. If corporations are legally people, they ought to be able to be incarcerated like people or executed like people.
“Who is this Twitter you speak of? My name is X. I don’t know any Twitter.“ - Musk with a fake moustache and glasses.
Bro, Elon gutted Twitter. I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t have the right people to get this information. I wonder if it sat in a mailbox for a day before they even had someone look at it.
Twitter isn’t a well run company anymore. This could be pure incompetence.
Elon is bleeding millions a day at this point - he won’t even know that this 350k ever existed or what it was for.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
At first, Twitter resisted producing Trump’s data and argued that the government’s nondisclosure order violated the First Amendment and the Stored Communications Act.
However, US circuit judge Florence Pan wrote that the court was largely unpersuaded by Twitter’s arguments, mostly because the government’s interest in Trump’s data as part of its ongoing January 6 investigation was “unquestionably compelling.”
The government then took the extra step to apply for a nondisclosure order, which was granted because “the district court found that there were ‘reasonable grounds to believe’ that disclosing the warrant to former President Trump ‘would seriously jeopardize the ongoing investigation’ by giving him ‘an opportunity to destroy evidence, change patterns of behavior, [or] notify confederates.’”
The court checked with Twitter and confirmed that it was capable of meeting a rapid deadline and turning over the data by 5:00 pm that evening.
The court rejected Twitter’s “good faith” arguments, mainly because the company blew past the original deadline and repeatedly failed to raise concerns at earlier opportunities.
While Twitter appealed the decision, the company “paid the $350,000 sanction into an escrow account maintained by the district court clerk’s office.”
I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Hmmmm, yes, we got rid of Nixon by complying with the first amendment act. At this point Elon is just a closeted far righter whos just scared to make it public.
Meanwhile, Twitter was late in its attempts to oppose the sanctions formula. The court opinion said that Twitter’s counsel “belatedly” pointed out that “roughly one month of noncompliance” would have “required Twitter to pay a sanction greater than ‘the entire world’s gross domestic product.’”
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