Good morning, and welcome to the Important California e-newsletter. It’s Tuesday, April 26. I’m Justin Ray.
Information that the world’s wealthiest man was set to purchase one of many greatest social media firms rocked the web on Monday.
After days of uncertainty across the platform’s future, Twitter’s board accredited Elon Musk’s roughly $44-billion provide. The corporate’s management initially tried to fend off the bid, adopting a “poison tablet” measure that might make a hostile takeover troublesome.
Musk is the world’s wealthiest individual, in keeping with Forbes, which places his fortune at $279 billion. Nevertheless, a lot of his cash is tied up in Tesla inventory — he owns about 17% of the corporate, which is valued at greater than $1 trillion. It’s not clear how a lot money Musk has.
His acquisition of San Francisco-based Twitter is large information; even in case you aren’t energetic on the platform, it impacts many areas of society: enterprise, information, politics, felony justice, leisure and the collective sanity of its customers.
Contemplating Twitter’s ubiquity, it's value understanding how Musk turned the businessman he's in the present day.
How Elon Musk constructed his empire
Whereas introducing him for a 2016 dialogue, former Stanford College President John Hennessy defined that Musk dropped out of Stanford after two days to begin a enterprise referred to as Zip2 (Disclosure: The Instances used Zip2 know-how). He made $22 million when he offered that enterprise in 1999 to Compaq Laptop. In 2002, he earned about $150 million in EBay Inc. shares when the public sale website purchased PayPal, the fee switch service he co-founded in Silicon Valley.
That very same 12 months, he began one of many two firms most related along with his identify: rocket firm SpaceX in El Segundo (which additionally occurs to be the identical neighborhood the place the Los Angeles Instances resides). The agency has contracts with NASA to launch astronauts into area and ship items to the Worldwide Area Station.
The second firm most linked to Musk has a extra difficult historical past. Tesla was began in 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. The pair quickly after introduced Musk in as an investor, in keeping with The Instances’ Russ Mitchell.
A feud ensued between Eberhard and Musk, and the billionaire “step by step took management of the corporate and Eberhard was fired in 2007.” (Talking of the electrical automobile firm, I additionally ought to point out that yesterday many individuals on the platform Musk simply purchased shared a Instances article about Black Tesla workers).
Now, Musk is ready to take over Twitter. The billionaire has stated he needs to make the platform a friendlier place free of charge expression (although his previous calls into query his devotion to that idea). It's nonetheless unclear how Musk will overcome the hurdles complicating his path to possession. Specialists say his technique integrated sound negotiation rules — “with a twist of his distinctive, unpredictable type.”
Listed below are a few of Musk’s different ventures.
Associated studying:
Column: With Elon Musk in cost, it’s the start of the top for #BlackTwitter. “Elon Musk, the founding father of an organization that California is suing for allegedly silencing hundreds of Black workers who complained about racism, is shopping for an organization that has given hundreds of thousands of Black folks a megaphone-like voice to complain about racism,” writes columnist Erika D. Smith.
And now, right here’s what’s taking place throughout California:
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L.A. STORIES
Paperwork launched Monday by the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Workplace revealed new particulars in regards to the day Alec Baldwin by chance shot cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on a New Mexico set final October, in addition to the occasions previous and following the deadly taking pictures. Los Angeles Instances
An organization accused of handing out faux outcomes for lots of of coronavirus assessments can pay greater than $20 million in a settlement introduced by Los Angeles Metropolis Atty. Mike Feuer. Los Angeles Instances
A canine assault in Pico Rivera late Sunday night time left a mom and her 1-year-old daughter injured, and the lady stabbed to demise one of many animals to avoid wasting her baby. Los Angeles Instances
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POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT
Showdown between reform and tough-on-crime insurance policies in California lawyer common’s race. “Probably the most contentious and intently watched California election in 2022 is prone to be the race for lawyer common, the place voters will select in June from the liberal incumbent who was appointed to the job final 12 months, three unheralded challengers and an brazenly homosexual profession prosecutor whose marketing campaign might hinge on the general public’s new fears about crime,” writes Hannah Wiley. Los Angeles Instances
The top of the Los Angeles Homeless Providers Authority tendered her resignation Monday over a disagreement with the group’s board in regards to the salaries of its lowest-paid staffers. Los Angeles Instances
CRIME, COURTS AND POLICING
Authorities close to San Francisco say they seized practically 100 kilos of illicit fentanyl value over $4 million. “This can be a glimpse of the fentanyl epidemic,” the Alameda County Sheriff’s Workplace stated in a tweet Saturday that confirmed an image of the medication. “That’s 42,000 grams that had been headed for the streets of the Bay Space.” It wasn’t clear how many individuals had been arrested in reference to the bust. KCRA
An Orange County man was arrested on suspicion of constructing anti-LGBTQ threats towards Merriam-Webster Inc. and faces a federal cost in Massachusetts, authorities confirmed. Jeremy David Hanson, 34, is accused of utilizing the web site’s “Contact Us” web page and feedback sections to ship disturbing messages to the dictionary firm. Los Angeles Instances
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HEALTH AND THE ENVIRONMENT
How Large Tobacco used George Floyd and Eric Garner to stoke concern amongst Black people who smoke. If California votes to ban the sale of menthol cigarettes in November, it will comply with Massachusetts because the second state to take action. The Meals and Drug Administration has drafted a nationwide ban that might comply with within the subsequent few years, which estimates recommend might save greater than 600,000 lives, together with virtually 250,000 Black lives. Since final summer time, The Instances and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism have tracked strategic efforts throughout the nation by tobacco maker Reynolds American to maintain menthols within the fingers of people who smoke. Los Angeles Instances
What number of California lives had been saved by COVID-19 vaccines? Scientists have a solution. A brand new undertaking from researchers at UC San Francisco in collaboration with the California Division of Public Well being attracts the clearest image so far on what the state may need appeared like had the vaccines by no means materialized. Los Angeles Instances
CALIFORNIA CULTURE
Amy’s Kitchen faces a litany of complaints from workers over office abuses. A January NBC report revealed that manufacturing unit staff felt like they had been being pushed previous the purpose of damage. In response to the report, the corporate’s founders launched an announcement that learn, partially: “We wish all Amy’s workers to really feel they're being taken care of, and we're deeply saddened to listen to in regards to the experiences these 5 workers have described.” However since that report was printed, “Amy’s has made a couple of adjustments, staff say — only a few,” Larry Buhl experiences. Capital and Fundamental
‘Individuals’s Convoy’ pelted with eggs in California. When the convoy entered Oakland, offended residents hurled eggs on the passing autos. “Get out of our city,” onlookers shouted, in keeping with a video on YouTube. The “Individuals’s Convoy,” one among a number of trucker convoys in america and Canada, demonstrated towards COVID-19 restrictions in Washington D.C. in March. Sacramento Bee
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CALIFORNIA ALMANAC
Los Angeles: Sunny, 80 San Diego: 71 San Francisco: Overcast, 62 San Jose: Cloudy, 69 Fresno: Sunny,81 Sacramento: Overcast, 80
AND FINALLY
Right now’s California reminiscence is from David Holzman:
I turned 4 dwelling on Perry Lane, in Menlo Park, the summer time of 1957. It was a summer time of marvel, together with a dwell oak in the course of the road that dwarfed the cottages. My senior 12 months in highschool was a parental sabbatical to Stanford. I visited our cottage. It was charming as I remembered. No marvel Perry Lane attracted artists and writers. Within the early ’00s, I appeared up our cottage on Zillow. To my shock, it was value $1.2 million. Then I seen the house was inbuilt ’02. It was then I noticed the cottage was gone, and I'd by no means return.
In case you have a reminiscence or story in regards to the Golden State, share it with us. (Please hold your story to 100 phrases.)
Please tell us what we will do to make this text extra helpful to you. Ship feedback to essentialcalifornia@latimes.com.
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