By Tolu Ajiboye

Ripple CTO David Schwartz launched an attack, stating what he believes Elon Musk truly wants buy offering to buy Twitter.

Ripple CTO David Schwartz has criticized Elon Musk, suggesting “true intentions” for Musk’s decision to take over Twitter. According to Schwartz, the Tesla CEO wants to use the microblogging platform to give “better treatment to political speech that he favours.”

Schwartz’s scathing assessment of what he believes to be Musk’s real agenda comes after a recent Musk tweet. On April 19th, Musk put out a tweet that hinted at the billionaire’s vision of the optimal moderation policies for any social media platform. The message read, “A social media platform’s policies are good if the most extreme 10 per cent on left and right are equally unhappy.”

Timeline of Ripple CTO Criticizes Elon Musk on Twitter

A majority of participants on Twitter seemed to agree with Musk’s message and his plan to take over the platform. However, the Tesla and SpaceX chief executive’s Twitter statement irked Ripple’s Schwartz, setting off a torrent of accusatory responses from the Ripple CTO. In one of his direct responses to Musk on Twitter, Schwartz said:

“[Musk’s 10% policy] is an incredibly bad policy that works absurdly poorly. It rewards unreasonable people and punishes reasonable people. And if there’s one lesson to learn from economics, it’s that people respond to incentives.”

In addition, the Ripple CTO proceeded to further offer a subsequent trail of detailed reasons why he disagreed with Musk. After doing this, Schwartz capped off by questioning Musk’s competence at identifying “social media moderation problems,” saying:

“It really looks like Musk has literally never spoken to anyone who has tangled with social media moderation problems at all and is just listing off the top of his head all the policies that sound good to someone who does not understand the problem at all.”

When one of the participants on the message timeline @XRPcryptowolf accused Schwartz of trying to undermine Musk’s “freedom of speech” vision, the Ripple CTO responded by saying:

“[Musk] is not trying to make Twitter a better place for freedom of speech though. He’s trying to push Twitter’s moderation policy to give better treatment to political speech he favors and to give worse treatment to political speech he disfavors.”

Another Twitter user @digitsmoney took a similar stance with @XRPcryptowolf, also accusing Schwartz of being more of a problem than a solution. To this, the Ripple CTO simply responded with, “What do you think Elon is trying to do exactly?”

Musk Twitter Takeover Bid

Elon Musk recently offered to buy Twitter outrightly to transform the platform and “unlock” its “true potential”. Pursuant to his offer, the South African-born billionaire businessman proffered an acquisition value of US$43 billion, or US$54.20 a share. Musk also revealed his intention to make Twitter private if his transformation plan is accepted. Prior to this offer, the well-heeled business investor had also flirted with starting his own social media platform from scratch.

With a cloud of uncertainty surrounding the company regarding the future of Grubhub, Chief Executive Officer Jitse Groen is optimistic about the company’s growth in the long term.

Dutch multinational online food ordering and delivery company Just Eat Takeaway.com has expressed its willingness to sell Grubhub Inc, its American subsidiary offering the same services. This plan was detailed in a trading update shared by the company today, affirming that the decision to sell Grubhub in part or whole is in tandem with its shareholder’s interest.

“The Management Board confirms its alignment with shareholders in wanting to both create and realize value from the Company’s highly attractive portfolio of assets. As such, management is currently, together with its advisers, actively exploring the introduction of a strategic partner into and/or the partial or full sale of Grubhub. There can be no certainty that any such strategic actions will be agreed or what the timing of such agreements will be,” the company noted.

The move to sell Grubhub is coming in just about a year since the company acquired the American-based startup for US$7.3 billion. The fight to take over Grubhub was a heated one at the time as Uber Technologies Inc was also a notable contender in the race to buy the company for Uber Eats, its subsidiary in the same line of business.

The acquisition of Grubhub, though strategic, has come under criticism from a number of investors, particularly Cat Rock Capital which owns a 6.5 per cent stake in the company. The investment firm called on Just Eat to sell the subsidiary in order to be able to focus on its European business.

Just as it said, while the firm is awaiting a promising investor to come along, it will continue to operate the Grubhub business as its own in a bid to likely break even with its investments. The call to sell the outfit seems to be received well by investors as TKWY shares are up 8.70 per cent to 28.37 Euros at the time of writing.

Other Highlights of the Just Eat Takeaway Trading Update Besides Grubhub

While the food ordering business has generally taken a hit from the best performances of the Covid-19 pandemic era when people resorted to food ordering services as they were unable to move freely, Just Eat Takeaway has been able to maintain a relatively impressive performance as showcased in its trading update.

While Just Eat Takeaway.com processed 264 million orders, roughly flat compared with the same period in 2021, its Gross Transaction Value (GTV) came in at €7.2 billion(US$7.8billion) in the first quarter of 2022, up 4 per cent when compared with the same period of 2021. This significant uptick was driven by a higher Average Transaction Value.

With a cloud of uncertainty surrounding the company regarding the future of Grubhub, Chief Executive Officer Jitse Groen is optimistic about the company’s growth in the long term. According to his words in a statement, Jitse said the firm “expects profitability to gradually improve throughout the year, and to return to positive adjusted EBITDA in 2023.”

Ripple CTO David Schwartz launched an attack, stating what he believes Elon Musk truly wants buy offering to buy Twitter.

Ripple CTO David Schwartz has criticized Elon Musk, suggesting “true intentions” for Musk’s decision to take over Twitter. According to Schwartz, the Tesla CEO wants to use the microblogging platform to give “better treatment to political speech that he favors.”

Schwartz’s scathing assessment of what he believes to be Musk’s real agenda comes after a recent Musk tweet. On April 19th, Musk put out a tweet that hinted at the billionaire’s vision of the optimal moderation policies for any social media platform. The message read, “A social media platform’s policies are good if the most extreme 10 per cent on left and right are equally unhappy.”

Timeline of Ripple CTO Criticizes Elon Musk on Twitter

A majority of participants on Twitter seemed to agree with Musk’s message and his plan to take over the platform. However, the Tesla and SpaceX chief executive’s Twitter statement irked Ripple’s Schwartz, setting off a torrent of accusatory responses from the Ripple CTO. In one of his direct responses to Musk on Twitter, Schwartz said:

“[Musk’s 10% policy] is an incredibly bad policy that works absurdly poorly. It rewards unreasonable people and punishes reasonable people. And if there’s one lesson to learn from economics, it’s that people respond to incentives.”

In addition, the Ripple CTO proceeded to further offer a subsequent trail of detailed reasons why he disagreed with Musk. After doing this, Schwartz capped off by questioning Musk’s competence at identifying “social media moderation problems,” saying:

“It really looks like Musk has literally never spoken to anyone who has tangled with social media moderation problems at all and is just listing off the top of his head all the policies that sound good to someone who does not understand the problem at all.”

When one of the participants on the message timeline @XRPcryptowolf accused Schwartz of trying to undermine Musk’s “freedom of speech” vision, the Ripple CTO responded by saying:

“[Musk] is not trying to make Twitter a better place for freedom of speech though. He’s trying to push Twitter’s moderation policy to give better treatment to political speech he favors and to give worse treatment to political speech he disfavors.”

Another Twitter user @digitsmoney took a similar stance with @XRPcryptowolf, also accusing Schwartz of being more of a problem than a solution. To this, the Ripple CTO simply responded with, “What do you think Elon is trying to do exactly?”

Musk Twitter Takeover Bid

Elon Musk recently offered to buy Twitter outrightly to transform the platform and “unlock” its “true potential”. Pursuant to his offer, the South African-born billionaire businessman proffered an acquisition value of US$43 billion, or US$54.20 a share. Musk also revealed his intention to make Twitter private if his transformation plan is accepted. Prior to this offer, the well-heeled business investor had also flirted with starting his own social media platform from scratch.

• Ajiboye is a cryptocurrency and blockchain enthusiast based in Lagos. https://www.coinspeaker.com