Timothy L. O'Brien

Elon Musk Taps His Inner Trump in Twitter Machinations

Maybe Elon Musk will acquire Twitter Inc. before a court-appointed Oct. 28 deadline to complete the $44 billion acquisition rolls around. Maybe the price of Tesla Inc.’s shares, currency that Musk may need to rely on to help pay for the deal, will bounce back from a grinding downturn. Maybe the…

Why So Many of Trump’s People Just Can’t Resist Him

Each episode of the true-crime drama currently airing from Room 390 of the Cannon House Office Building in Washington has offered variations on a theme: Former President Donald Trump used the powers of his office, and blunt force, to foment a coup after losing the 2020 presidential election. …

Elon Musk Shows Some Buyer’s Remorse With Twitter

Elon Musk took to Twitter early Friday to say that his takeover of the company was “temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users.” Musk might be serious about this. Or he might be joking and just using his vast…

Musk Is the Wrong Leader for Twitter’s Vital Mission

It looks as if Twitter Inc. will sell itself to Elon Musk for $43 billion, which would make the deal one of the largest leveraged buyouts in Wall Street history and give Tesla Inc.’s steward a powerful social media perch. The math is sketchy, however, as are Musk’s intentions. Both of those…

Elon Musk Is Not What Twitter Needs Right Now

Elon Musk wants to buy Twitter Inc. for $43 billion — but he has only about $3 billion in cash on hand. Most of the fortune of the world’s richest man, which adds up to some $259 billion, is tied up in Tesla Inc. and other nifty things. So if he’s serious about a takeover — and there is ample…

How Will Elon Musk Change Twitter?

Just a day after it was revealed that Elon Musk had bought $3 billion of Twitter Inc.’s stock, making him its single largest shareholder, the company’s chief executive officer took to Twitter to announce how the world’s richest man had decided to exercise his leverage. “I’m excited to share that…

Citi Shows Leadership by Enforcing Vaccine Mandate

Last October, Citigroup Inc. told about 70,000 of its employees to get Covid-19 vaccinations or lose their jobs. Today, the banking giant made good on that promise, telling its staff that any who remain unvaccinated by Jan. 14 will be placed on unpaid leave and then lose their jobs at month’s end. …

Vaccine Mandates Win in Court, Not a Moment Too Soon

A federal appeals court overseeing the consolidation of dozens of legal challenges to the Biden administration’s Covid-19 testing and vaccine mandates for businesses ruled on Friday evening that the White House’s effort can move forward. Demonstrating that common sense and a healthy regard for…

America’s Most Secretive Utility Is Amazon Web Services

Amazon.com Inc.’s ubiquitous cloud-computing network, the spine for a lot of digital communications and transactions across the US, went dark for several hours on Tuesday. Here are some things that might have freaked you out: • You were jogging and couldn’t order your Roomba to vacuum the…

Mark Zuckerberg Needs to Change More Than Facebook’s Name

Mark Zuckerberg wants to rechristen Facebook Inc., giving the financial powerhouse — and social media hothouse — a fresh identity. While Zuckerberg’s corporate baby has handily weathered prior crises, boasts an enviable global footprint and continues to rake in massive profits, critics have turned…