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The Legal Battle Elon Never Saw Coming
Depp’s Runaway Jury, Tragedy in Buffalo, Media’s TV Secret  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ 
The Daily Courant

Depp’s Runaway Jury, Tragedy in Buffalo, Media’s TV Secret

Welcome back to the Daily Courant, your afternoon guide to what’s new at Puck.

Today, Eriq Gardner unfurls Elon’s other, other legal nightmare: a little-known Texas law that could transform Twitter from a free speech playground into a lawsuit-ridden wasteland. (Plus: the surprising #MeToo game theory steering the Depp-Heard jury.)

Then, below the fold, Baratunde Thurston joins Peter Hamby to discuss the tragedy in Buffalo and the intellectual fallacies underpinning Samuel Alito’s leaked decision. And Matt Belloni is in New York for an incisive look at how broadcast TV still dominates the media landscape.

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Elon’s Other Legal Headache
Elon’s Other Legal Headache
While Musk plays hardball with Twitter, risking a lawsuit from the board, Texas threatens to transform his free speech utopia into a forcibly unconstrained, heavily regulated hellhole.
ERIQ GARDNER ERIQ GARDNER
On Friday, the will-he-or-won’t-he soap opera that is Elon Musk buying Twitter reached a mid-season cliffhanger. The colorful Tesla chief pointed to a Reuters story and tweeted, “Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users.” Later, he stated that he was “still committed to acquisition,” but proposed sampling a “random” group of 100 users to gauge the extent of the issue. One follower asked him, “You didn’t think about this before offering $44 billion to buy the company?” He responded, “I relied upon the accuracy of Twitter’s public filings.”

That sure sounds like he’s looking for a pretext to back out of the deal or at least try to renegotiate the price. If he’s having regrets, that’s understandable given how the market for tech stocks has been tanking of late, but this quibble over the authenticity of Twitter’s user base is weak sauce. The individual who challenged his seeming lack of due diligence is perfectly right to be skeptical. And the merger agreement leaves him few outs but to fork over the billion-dollar termination fee plus possibly more for breaching the contract. After all, based on case precedent, it’s unlikely that a court would see the inaccurate counting of Twitter’s fake users as constituting the kind of “material adverse effect” on the business that would give Musk proper cause to terminate the deal. Accordingly, he’d be the underdog in any legal fight with Twitter over the non-consummation of the marriage, at least for this particular reason. Plus, he’s now got to worry about Twitter’s board suing him to ensure the deal closes...
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FOUR STORIES WE'RE TALKING ABOUT
The Buffalo Tragedy
The Buffalo Tragedy
Baratunde Thurston joins Peter to discuss the tragedy in Buffalo and the intellectual fallacies of Samuel Alito’s leaked decision.
PETER HAMBY
TV's Zombie Cash
TV's Zombie Cash
Should advertisers continue to pay top dollar to major broadcast networks? Matt and Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw discuss.
MATTHEW BELLONI
Schiff's Recession Projection
Schiff's Recession Projection
Peter Schiff accurately predicted the 2008 recession. Want to know what he thinks is headed our way this time around?
WILLIAM D. COHAN
D.C. Succession Drama
D.C. Succession Drama
Investigating the early steps to replace Pelosi, Gillibrand’s possible 13-year itch, Bernie’s sulking, and the dish inside the West Wing.
TARA PALMERI
swash divider
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