Roundup: Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover team

If anyone still believes Silicon Valley is some sort of haven for progressive values or a better form of capitalism, this week hopefully disabused them of that notion. Tech companies are profiting immensely from relationships with the Israeli government and military, to such a degree that Google fired 28 people earlier in the week after they protested a major cloud contract the company has with the Israeli government. There was a moment when South African apartheid became untenable and companies were forced to cut ties with it. We can only hope that day comes soon for the Israeli apartheid regime.

In this week’s roundup, you’ll find the usual recommended reads, labor updates, and other news you might have missed. There are some really great pieces on the growth of SHEIN, transformations in Hollywood, and why AI-generated ebooks are flooding Amazon.

Instead of commentary this week, I’m going to direct you to a piece by journalist Jacob Silverman where he gives more detail on the 91 people who were on the transition team as Elon Musk took over Twitter in 2022. The full list of names was revealed in a case where six ex-Twitter employees are suing for not receiving the severance stipulated in their contracts. It tells us a lot more about the people Musk pulled from the rest of his empire to begin remaking Twitter to serve his personal and political goals — and could fuel more shareholder scrutiny of how Musk shares resources among his companies.

Over on Tech Won’t Save Us, I interviewed Alex Shephard about the popularization of sports betting and how it’s leading to a spike in gambling addiction. The piece I wrote a few weeks ago about Musk’s alliance with the global far right was also translated into Italian by Internazionale.

Have a great week!

— Paris