World

Not many people can boast of having candid conversations about planetary conquest with Elon Musk, but for Indian software engineer Pranay Pathole, a friendly chat with the world’s richest man is just a tweet away.

Their unlikely online friendship has blossomed since Pathole was a teenager, with the mercurial billionaire responding to him over hundreds of tweets and private messages with headline-making company updates and even life advice.

This week, the two finally met face to face, when Pathole travelled to the United States — his first trip overseas — to begin a master’s degree there in business analytics.

“He is super genuine. Like, way down-to-earth. He’s humble,” the 23-year-old told AFP beforehand. “The way he takes his time to respond to me… just shows.”

Musk is a prolific user of Twitter, often posting more than 30 times a day to his 103 million followers.

But it remains a mystery why the SpaceX and Tesla boss, with a net worth of $266 billion, maintains regular contact with the young Indian.

“To be very honest, I have no idea. I think he must be like, really intrigued by my questions,” Pathole told AFP from his parents’ upper-middle-class home in the western city of Pune.

Pathole’s account is one of only a small handful that the billionaire frequently replies to — an average of once every two days, based on Musk’s public Twitter posts since the start of 2020.

The first time Musk responded to him was in 2018 when Pathole, then aged 19, pointed out a flaw in Tesla’s automatic windshield wipers.

“Fixed in next release,” Musk replied, with Tesla addressing the issue in a subsequent software update.

His mother and father celebrated by taking him out to dinner that night.

“I was blown away, to be very honest,” Pathole says. “I took multiple screenshots of it and just never wanted the day to end.”

Their later private chats — daily at first — covered “busting myths” about Musk’s past and discussions about why colonising other planets is “essential”, Pathole says.

“I used to ask him dumb questions, silly questions. And he used to take his time to reply to me.”

The time difference between the US and India has done little to hamper the four-year virtual friendship.

“I don’t think he sleeps that often. Because he’s on Twitter, like, the majority of the time,” Pathole says.

– ‘He’s an unpredictable guy’ –

Pathole says interactions with Musk have become “much more casual” over the years, and he no longer rushes to share them with friends and family.

“Elon is the same guy in his public persona as well as in his private,” he says.

Musk’s candid, irreverent and often cryptic tweets have sparked wild stock and cryptocurrency price swings, inviting scrutiny by US regulators.

The billionaire investor is also locked in a high-stakes legal battle with Twitter itself over his effort to walk away from an agreement to buy the company, with the trial set to begin in October.

But Pathole rejects suggestions that the billionaire acts with malice. 

“I don’t think that he’s a troll,” Pathole says. “He’s an unpredictable guy.”

Recruited straight out of engineering college to work at Tata Consultancy Services, India’s biggest IT firm, Pathole says he was “infamous” for getting into trouble at school — a trait he says helps him better understand Musk.

Having travelled to the US last week — bearing sweets for Musk — he hopes to not only earn his degree at the University of Texas at Dallas but gain work experience at a US company, including any of Musk’s.

“I want to get a job at Tesla on my own merit. It’s not like I want any favours. It would be good if he could interview me,” Pathole says.

After their meeting, Pathole tweeted a picture of the pair, which Musk “liked”.

– ‘Live on Earth, die on Mars’ –

Dressed in a black T-shirt in the style of his idol, Pathole can explain the intricacies of reusable rocket boosters and make a philosophical case for space exploration with equal ease.

Often, he quotes the billionaire entrepreneur’s comments verbatim.

“Live on Earth and die on Mars: that is a philosophy that we all share,” Pathole says, adding that he wants to grow old and die with the “red dust of Mars” on his feet.

Pathole has amassed a six-digit Twitter following, adding more every time Musk mentions him in a tweet.

Even offline, Musk is a frequent topic of dinner-table conversation with Pathole’s family and friends.

“Elon is like our family friend,” jokes Pranay’s father Prashant, a media consultant, adding that he and his wife Pallavi, a homemaker, were proud of their son’s passion.

“If he follows Elon Musk, if he wants to settle down on Mars, we don’t mind.”

TikTok influencers boasting collectively more than 51 million followers say they won’t work with Amazon until the e-commerce colossus delivers key concessions to workers and halts anti-union efforts.

It’s the latest example of creators lending their online stage to a cause on the massively growing platform more known for dance crazes and catchy songs.

An advocacy group calling itself Gen-Z for Change said it coordinated the pledge from more than 70 popular TikTok talents to stand in solidarity with Amazon workers through a “People Over Prime Pledge.”

The vow references Amazon Prime — a paid subscription from the online giant that includes benefits like rapid deliveries — but also the pressure it puts on those working to fill the orders.

“We are calling on Amazon to listen to their workers and make tangible changes to their workplace environment,” the group said in a letter, noting that TikTok has more than a billion users.

“Unless changes are made, we will prevent Amazon from monetizing one of the largest social media platforms in the world.”

The coalition is pushing for the firm’s workers to get a minimum hourly wage of $30, improved medical leave and easing of productivity requirements.

The group is also calling on Amazon, which has long resisted unionization efforts in its US facilities, to stop its opposition.

“We have always known how essential creators are to the Amazon marketing model,” Gen-Z for Change director of strategy Elise Joshi told AFP on Monday.

“Creators, especially TikTok creators, are the gateway to young people; we are reclaiming that power,” the 20-year-old added.

An Amazon Influencer Program launched five years ago offers creators at TikTok, YouTube, Instagram and other social media platforms ways to make money by recommending products in posts and steering buyers to the e-commerce service.

Some, but not all coalition members — who began last week refusing to do business with Amazon, including direct sponsorships and use of the e-commerce titan’s storefront — were associated with that partnership initiative.

– ‘Comfortable pace’ –

The demands sought in this case are those put forth by labor organizers who early this year won a vote to launch the first union shop at one of Amazon’s US warehouses.

The second largest employer in the United States behind retail mega-chain Walmart, Amazon has fiercely opposed attempts to unionize workers.

“The health, safety and welfare of our employees is our top priority,” Amazon spokesman Paul Flanigan said in response to an AFP inquiry.

“We are committed to giving our employees the resources they need to be successful, creating time for regular breaks and a comfortable pace of work,” he added.

Amazon has invested billions of dollars in safety measures, technology and more intended to protect employees, Flanigan said.

Joshi dismissed Amazon’s response as “boilerplate” and hoped it would inspire social media influencers to get involved in the campaign.

– TikTok activism –

Gen-Z for Change organizers reasoned that the power to reach tens of millions of young internet users comes with responsibility to advocate for social justice.

“We feel obligated because we have a large platform and a passion for equity,” said 19-year-old Connor Hesse, a content specialist at Gen-Z for Change and TikTok creator with some 2.3 million subscribers.

Mobilizing on social media for Amazon employee rights can prompt other companies to improve worker conditions to avoid being targets of similar campaigns, argued Aly, a TikTok creator behind the account usa.mom.in.germany.

Gen-Z for Change has aimed pro-labor campaigns at coffee chain Starbucks and Kroger supermarket group.

TikTok users in 2020 took credit for duping former US president Donald Trump into bragging that an election rally in Oklahoma was going to be overflowing because of online ticket requests, only to have him met with a below-capacity audience.

Fox News boss Lachlan Murdoch has launched legal proceedings against Australian media outlet Crikey, accusing the site of defaming him in an opinion piece about the January 6 US Capitol riots.

The lawsuit was filed late Tuesday in Australian federal court, a day after Crikey made public a cache of legal letters sent by Murdoch’s lawyers since the article’s June publication and dared the media scion to sue it.

Crikey even took out an advert in the New York Times on Monday, publishing an open letter that welcomed the opportunity to “test this important issue of freedom of public interest journalism in a courtroom”.

Murdoch is chief executive of media behemoth Fox Corporation and co-chairman of News Corp.

He is the eldest son of billionaire media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, owner of scores of outlets including Fox News, The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post.

Crikey’s article — headlined “Trump is a confirmed unhinged traitor. And Murdoch is his unindicted co-conspirator” — did not name the younger Murdoch directly.

However, it did refer to the “Murdochs and their slew of poisonous Fox News commentators” in its final paragraph.

Murdoch’s lawyers claimed in letters to Crikey that their client was defamed 22 times in the article and its social media posts.

While Crikey initially deleted the article on the day it was published as a “goodwill gesture” after Murdoch’s lawyers made contact, the piece was reinstated amid the legal wrangling.

Crikey editor Peter Fray and chairman Eric Beecher said Wednesday that the site “stands by its story”.

“We look forward to defending our independent public interest journalism in court against the considerable resources of Lachlan Murdoch,” they said.

“We believe that coverage of the events of January 6 at the US Capitol, and the role of Fox News in those events, is absolutely legitimate.”

Murdoch’s representatives were also approached for comment.

The story has made waves in Australia, where the Murdoch family remains a major player in the local media despite its global expansion.

Former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull even weighed into the saga Wednesday saying he was “very surprised” by Murdoch’s decision.

“I think it’s hypocritical,” he told radio show RN Breakfast, adding that the Murdochs were “always bleating about freedom of speech, and how the defamation laws are too harsh.”

Australia’s tough libel laws offer few protections to the media and have earned the country the nickname “the defamation capital of the world”.

Twitter misled users and US regulators about “extreme, egregious” gaps in its online protections, the platform’s ex-security chief claimed in whistleblower testimony that could impact the court fight over Elon Musk’s buyout bid.

Peiter Zatko’s complaint, which was published Tuesday by US media, also accused Twitter of significantly underestimating the number of fake and spam accounts — a crucial point in Musk’s argument for trying to cancel his $44 billion deal to own the platform.

Zatko’s filing to authorities including market watchdog Securities and Exchange Commission accuses Twitter of “negligence, willful ignorance, and threats to national security and democracy.”

The ex-worker, who Twitter says was fired for poor performance, warns of obsolete servers, software vulnerable to computer attacks and executives seeking to hide the number of hacking attempts, both from US authorities and from the company’s board of directors.

The hacker-turned-executive, who goes by the nickname “Mudge,” also claims that Twitter prioritizes growing its user base over fighting spam and bots, the filing says.

In particular, Zatko accuses the platform and its CEO Parag Agrawal of issuing untrue statements on account numbers because “if accurate measurements ever became public, it would harm the image and valuation of the company.”

His filing argues that because Twitter reports a tally of users based on who can be reached by advertising — not the actual number of accounts — the true magnitude of spam bots is effectively unknown to the public.

Twitter fired back at its former worker, saying Zatko was fired in January for “ineffective leadership and poor performance.”

“What we’ve seen so far is a false narrative about Twitter and our privacy and data security practices that is riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies and lacks important context,” the firm said in a statement.

The “opportunistic timing” of the allegations appears “designed to capture attention and inflict harm on Twitter, its customers and its shareholders,” the statement continued.

A redacted version of the filing was dated July 6, nearly a week before Twitter launched its lawsuit to try to force Musk to close the buyout deal and which is set for trial in mid-October.

Zatko’s legal team called the characterizations of his work and departure from Twitter as “false”, noting he was fired after clashing with the new CEO Agrawal.

– ‘Dangerous security risks’ –

The issue of fake accounts is at the heart of the legal battle between Twitter and Tesla chief Musk. 

The billionaire has repeatedly accused the company of minimizing the number of bot accounts on its platform, and he tweeted Tuesday “spam prevalence *was* shared with the board, but the board chose not disclose that to the public…”

Musk is relying on the bot argument to justify abandoning his buyout deal and avoid paying severance, but Twitter’s lawsuit has asserted that it’s too late because the parties already have an agreement.

CNN reported that Zatko has not been in contact with Musk, and that he had begun the whistleblower process before there was any sign of the billionaire’s involvement in Twitter.

“We have already issued a subpoena for Mr. Zatko, and we found his exit and that of other key employees curious in light of what we have been finding,” Musk’s lawyer Alex Spiro told AFP.

The markets were not thrilled with Tuesday’s news and Twitter shares closed down over seven percent for the day.

Zatko was hired in late 2020 by the founder and former boss of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, after a massive hack that saw the accounts of major users including Joe Biden, Barack Obama, reality star Kim Kardashian and Musk himself compromised.

Before joining Twitter, Zatko held senior positions at Google and payments processing firm Stripe as well as DARPA, the technological research arm of the Pentagon.

US lawmakers immediately raised concerns about the allegations in Zatko’s filing and have pledged to look into them.

“If these claims are accurate, they may show dangerous data privacy and security risks for Twitter users around the world,” Senator Dick Durbin said in a statement.

Spanish slaughterhouses will have to install video surveillance to ensure animals are not mistreated before being killed, the government announced  Tuesday, claiming a first in the EU.

“This rule puts Spain at the forefront of Europe in this area and, as well as ensuring the welfare of animals during their passage through abattoirs, it also improves food safety guarantees for consumers,” said Consumer Affairs Minister Alberto Garzon.

The measure was approved at Tuesday’s cabinet meeting and will now be pushed quickly through parliament for approval.

It has already been agreed with the industry, government spokesperson Isabel Rodriguez told a press conference.

“We will be the first country in the European Union to have a compulsory video surveillance system in abattoirs,” said the consumer affairs ministry of Pedro Sanchez’s left-wing government.

Guillermo Moreno, executive director of Equalia, an NGO that lobbied for the reform, told AFP he was satisfied with what he called “a necessary and important first step to raise animal welfare standards in abattoirs”.

He added that England, Scotland and Israel had already introduced the measure in their slaughterhouses.

Under the Spanish rules, abattoirs will be required to retain the video images for later verification by the authorities.

“Large abattoirs have one year to implement the new standard” with smaller operations granted two years, the ministry said.