US Business

Elon Musk expressed excitement Saturday as he watched votes pour in on a Twitter poll he has posted on whether to readmit Donald Trump to the messaging platform.

“Reinstate former President Trump,” the billionaire Twitter owner posted Friday, with a chance to vote either yes or no.

As of about 1500 GMT Saturday, 52.3 percent of nearly 11 million responses were in favor of a return of the former president, who was banned from Twitter for his role in last year’s attack on the US Capitol by a mob of his followers seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Musk said the poll was drawing a million answers one way or another per hour.

“Fascinating to watch Twitter Trump poll!” Musk said Saturday morning in the latest blast of tweets from the hard-charging new owner of the one-to-many messaging platform.

There was no indication that the mercurial boss of Space-X and Tesla would adhere to the results of the ad hoc poll. 

But on Friday, Musk also posted a Latin adage suggesting that the decision would be up to Twitter users: “Vox Populi, Vox Dei” (“The voice of the people is the voice of God”).

He has done similar polls in the past, asking followers last year if he should sell stock in his electric car company Tesla. Following that poll, he sold more than $1 billion in shares.

Trump, who reveled in using Twitter as a mouthpiece, was followed by more than 88 million users. 

He has said he will not return to the popular platform but would instead remain on his own network, Truth Social, launched after he was banned from Twitter.

Musk, also the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has come under fire for radical changes at the California-based firm, which he bought less than a month ago for $44 billion.

Since then, he fired half of Twitter’s 7,500 staff, scrapped a work-from-home policy and imposed long hours, all while his attempts to overhaul the company faced backlash and delays.

His stumbling attempts to revamp user verification with a controversial subscription service led to a slew of fake accounts and pranks, and prompted major advertisers to step away from the platform.

On Friday, Musk appeared to be pressing on with his plans and reinstated previously banned accounts, including that of comedian Kathy Griffin, which had been taken down after she impersonated him on the site.

The company’s offices were locked down Friday and hundreds of employees quit rather than yield to Musk’s demands that they resign themselves to working long, grueling days at the new Twitter.

On the third day after lifting off from Florida bound for the Moon, the Orion spacecraft is “exceeding performance expectations,” NASA officials said on Friday. 

The spacecraft is to take astronauts to the Moon in the coming years — the first to set foot on its surface since the last Apollo mission in 1972. 

This first test flight, without a crew on board, aims to ensure that the vehicle is safe.

“Today we met to review the Orion spacecraft performance… it is exceeding performance expectations,” said Mike Sarafin, head of the Artemis 1 mission. 

The spacecraft’s four solar panels, about 13 feet (four meters) long, deployed correctly and are providing more energy than expected, said Jim Geffre, the Orion manager at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. 

It is from that control center in Texas that the spacecraft is being piloted. 

Orion is already some 200,000 miles (320,000 kilometers) from Earth and preparing to perform the first of four main thrusts scheduled during the mission using its engines. 

This maneuver, which will take place early Monday morning, will bring the spacecraft as close as 80 miles (130 kilometers) from the lunar surface, in order to take advantage of the Moon’s gravitational force. 

Since this will take place on the far side of the Moon, NASA is expected to lose contact with the spacecraft for approximately 35 minutes.

“We will be passing over some of the Apollo landing sites,” said  flight director Jeff Radigan, although they will be in darkness. Footage of the flyover will be released by NASA.

Four days later, a second thrust from the engines will place Orion in a distant orbit around the Moon. 

The ship will go up to 40,000 miles beyond the Moon, a record for a habitable capsule. 

It will then begin the journey back to Earth, with a landing in the Pacific Ocean scheduled for December 11, after just over 25 days of flight. 

The success of this mission will determine the future of the Artemis 2 mission, which will take astronauts around the Moon without landing, then Artemis 3, which will finally mark the return of humans to the lunar surface. 

Those missions are scheduled to take place in 2024 and 2025, respectively. 

Sarafin also said Friday that 10 scientific micro-satellites had been deployed when the rocket took off, but that half of them were experiencing technical or communication problems. 

Those experiments, carried out separately by independent teams, will have no impact on the main mission, however.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and US Vice President Kamala Harris called for open communication during a brief meeting on Saturday, days after his extensive talks with President Joe Biden aimed at keeping tensions in check.

Harris and Xi met during an Asia-Pacific summit in Bangkok where another US rival, Russia, saw itself isolated, with no top leader attending and a statement issued showing wide condemnation of its war in Ukraine.

Speaking to Xi on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, Harris reinforced Biden’s message that “we must maintain open lines of communication to responsibly manage the competition between our countries”, a White House official said.

On Monday, Biden and Xi met for three hours at a Group of 20 summit in Bali, the first in-person talks between the leaders of the world’s two largest economies since they each became president.

Chinese state media quoted Xi as telling Harris that his meeting with Biden was “strategic and constructive, and has important guiding significance for China-US relations in the next stage”.

“It is hoped that the two sides will further enhance mutual understanding, reduce misunderstanding and misjudgement, and jointly promote the return of China-US relations to a healthy and stable track,” added Xi, who is on only his second overseas trip since the pandemic.

US and Chinese officials have both put a positive spin on the renewal of diplomacy, while stopping short of predicting any substantive resolution of issues dividing them — notably Taiwan, the self-governing democracy claimed by Beijing.

Xi and Biden agreed that Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit China early next year, the first visit by a top US diplomat since 2018.

Blinken told reporters in Bangkok that the contacts aimed at making sure that competition “does not veer into conflict” and examining areas of cooperation on global challenges such as climate change.

The United States said it was also looking for China to do more to rein in its ally North Korea, which on Friday test-fired a ballistic missile that US and Japanese officials said was likely capable of hitting the US mainland.

China should use its influence to persuade North Korea “not to go in this provocative direction, which only destabilises the region and the world”, said a US official travelling with Harris.

– Pressure on Russia –

If relations remain unchanged, Xi could see Biden in a year’s time when the United States hosts the APEC summit in San Francisco.

Xi last visited the United States in 2017, meeting then president Donald Trump at his Florida estate, but relations between the two countries later sharply deteriorated over trade, Taiwan, human rights and Covid-19.

APEC, which groups 21 economies, focuses on trade rather than political matters. But after US insistence, APEC followed the formula of this week’s G20 summit to take up the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, a member of both organisations.

“Most members strongly condemned the war in Ukraine and stressed it is causing immense human suffering and exacerbating existing fragilities in the global economy,” an APEC joint declaration said.

“There were other views and different assessments of the situation and sanctions.” 

The United States has been cautiously upbeat about China taking a distance from nominal ally Russia, including by rejecting requests to send military supplies.

While engaging Xi, the United States has vowed to shun Russian President Vladimir Putin who skipped this week’s Asian summits and is virtually certain not to receive an invitation to San Francisco.

Harris, who is originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, told leaders in Bangkok that the United States would focus next year’s summit on raising climate ambitions.

She asked leaders to prepare new targets in time for the 2023 summit on reducing emissions from the power sector, hoping to flesh out longer-term commitments by most APEC members on zeroing out carbon.

The future of Twitter seemed to hang in the balance Friday after its offices were locked down and key employees announced their departures in defiance of an ultimatum from new owner Elon Musk.

Fears grew that a fresh exodus would threaten the very existence of one of the world’s most influential internet platforms, which serves as a key communication tool for the world’s media, politicians, companies, activists and celebrities.

According to ex-employees and US media, hundreds of employees chose “no” to Musk’s demand that they either be “extremely hardcore” or leave the company.

“So my friends are gone, the vision is murky, there is a storm coming and no financial upside. What would you do?” tweeted Peter Clowes, who refused Musk’s final warning.

Musk, also the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has come under fire for radical changes at the California-based firm, which he bought less than a month ago for $44 billion.

He had already fired half of Twitter’s 7,500 staff, scrapped a work-from-home policy and imposed long hours, all while his attempts to overhaul the company faced backlash and delays.

His stumbling attempts to revamp user verification with a controversial subscription service led to a slew of fake accounts and pranks, and prompted major advertisers to step away from the platform.

On Friday, Musk appeared to be pressing on with his plans and reinstated previously banned accounts, including that of comedian Kathy Griffin, which had been taken down after she impersonated him on the site.

Musk did not immediately welcome back former US president Donald Trump, saying the “decision has not yet been made” on the return of the ex-leader. 

Trump was banned for inciting last year’s attack on the Capitol by a mob seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 US election.

But hours later, Musk posted a poll to Twitter asking users to vote “yes” or “no” on whether to “Reinstate former President Trump,” though there was no clear indication that he would adhere to the results of the ad hoc survey.

Musk has done similar polls in the past, asking followers last year if he should sell stock in his electric car company Tesla. 

– ‘Not super worried’ –

Fevered talk of the site’s imminent demise was driving record-high engagement on Twitter, according to Musk.

In a tweet, the South African-born billionaire said: “Record numbers of users are logging in to see if Twitter is dead, ironically making it more alive than ever!”

Musk added that the “best people are staying, so I’m not super worried.”

Despite Musk’s assurances, entry to Twitter’s offices was temporarily closed until Monday, even with a badge, according to an internal message seen on US media.

In leaked emails reported in The New York Times, Musk asked engineers critical to the site’s functioning to make their way to Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco on Friday to meet him in person.

Twitter did not respond to AFP requests for comment on the new measure.

In the ultimatum sent Wednesday, Musk had asked staff to follow a link to affirm their commitment to “the new Twitter” by 5:00 pm New York time (2200 GMT) on Thursday.

If they did not do so, they would have lost their jobs, receiving three months of severance pay.

Signs that government regulators were becoming impatient with Musk’s handling of Twitter also grew on Friday, especially over the platform’s ability to moderate content with a severely reduced headcount.

A group of US senators on Thursday said Musk’s plans for the site “undermined the integrity and safety of the platform… despite clear warnings those changes would be abused for fraud, scams, and dangerous impersonation.”

A top regulator for the European Union, meanwhile, said that Musk should be increasing the number of moderators in Europe, not reducing them.

Musk “knows perfectly well what the conditions are for Twitter to continue operating in Europe,” EU commissioner Thierry Breton told French radio.

A spokesman for German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said his government was watching developments at Twitter “with growing concern” and reviewing its presence on the platform.

On the third day after lifting off from Florida bound for the Moon, the Orion spacecraft is “exceeding performance expectations,” NASA officials said on Friday. 

The spacecraft is to take astronauts to the Moon in the coming years — the first to set foot on its surface since the last Apollo mission in 1972. 

This first test flight, without a crew on board, aims to ensure that the vehicle is safe.

“Today we met to review the Orion spacecraft performance… it is exceeding performance expectations,” said Mike Sarafin, head of the Artemis 1 mission. 

The spacecraft’s four solar panels, about 13 feet (four meters) long, deployed correctly and are providing more energy than expected, said Jim Geffre, the Orion manager at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. 

It is from that control center in Texas that the spacecraft is being piloted. 

Orion is already some 200,000 miles (320,000 kilometers) from Earth and preparing to perform the first of four main thrusts scheduled during the mission using its engines. 

This maneuver, which will take place early Monday morning, will bring the spacecraft as close as 80 miles (130 kilometers) from the lunar surface, in order to take advantage of the Moon’s gravitational force. 

Since this will take place on the far side of the Moon, NASA is expected to lose contact with the spacecraft for approximately 35 minutes.

“We will be passing over some of the Apollo landing sites,” said  flight director Jeff Radigan, although they will be in darkness. Footage of the flyover will be released by NASA.

Four days later, a second thrust from the engines will place Orion in a distant orbit around the Moon. 

The ship will go up to 40,000 miles beyond the Moon, a record for a habitable capsule. 

It will then begin the journey back to Earth, with a landing in the Pacific Ocean scheduled for December 11, after just over 25 days of flight. 

The success of this mission will determine the future of the Artemis 2 mission, which will take astronauts around the Moon without landing, then Artemis 3, which will finally mark the return of humans to the lunar surface. 

Those missions are scheduled to take place in 2024 and 2025, respectively. 

Sarafin also said Friday that 10 scientific micro-satellites had been deployed when the rocket took off, but that half of them were experiencing technical or communication problems. 

Those experiments, carried out separately by independent teams, will have no impact on the main mission, however.