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Twitter to Depose Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Known for ‘Combative’ Testimony, Ahead of Upcoming Legal Battle
Billionaire Elon Musk’s tendency to dish out insults while being questioned under oath will be tested anew this week, when lawyers for Twitter are expected to interview the Tesla CEO about his abrupt decision in July to ditch his $44 billion (roughly Rs. 3,37,465 crore) deal for the social media company.
Testifying in past legal battles, the world’s richest person has called opposing attorneys “reprehensible,” questioned their happiness and accused them of “extortion.” He asked one attorney if he was working on a contingency because the lawyer’s client was allegedly behind on child support payments.
“So probably you’re on a contingency or you’re taking that kid’s money. Which is it?” Musk asked a lawyer for a whistleblower in a case against Tesla, according to a transcript of the 2020 deposition.
The high-stakes Twitter interview is closed to the public. A court filing last week said the Musk deposition was scheduled to begin on Monday and run into Wednesday, if needed. Sources with knowledge of the deposition said Musk was not questioned on Monday and they did not know what day it would begin nor did they give a reason for the delay.
Musk’s lawyers will want to keep him focused on answering questions, but that can be a challenge with such a smart and opinionated witness, said James Morsch, a corporate litigator who is not involved in the court battle.
“I would compare it to trying to hold a tiger by his tail,” Morsch said.
In a 2019 deposition in litigation over Tesla’s takeover of solar-panel maker SolarCity, Musk refused five times to answer one of the initial questions because of the way it was worded, the transcript shows.
“We can stare at each other until you rephrase it,” Musk told opposing attorney Randall Baron, according to a transcript.
“I’ll guess we’ll just cancel this deposition,” Baron responded. Baron suggested that he would seek an order from the judge directing Musk to answer questions, which seemed to get things moving.
Twitter declined to comment and Musk’s legal team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Twitter’s attorneys are expected to use the interview to try to show that Musk abandoned the deal due to falling financial markets and not because the company misled him about the real number of users or hid security flaws, as he alleged.
Musk wants a judge to allow him to walk away without penalty, while Twitter wants an order forcing him to buy the company for $54.20 (roughly Rs. 4,180) per share. Twitter’s stock ended up 0.4 percent at $41.58 (roughly Rs. 3,300) on Friday.
A five-day trial is scheduled to begin on October 17 in Wilmington, Delaware.
Dozens of depositions are scheduled in the case, including of Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, as each side questions witnesses and gathers evidence to make its case.
Agrawal was scheduled to answer questions from Musk’s lawyers at a law firm in San Francisco starting at 9.00am (9.30pm IST) local time on Monday, according to a court filing, although sources said that deposition was also postponed and did not give a reason.
Twitter co-founder and former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was scheduled to be deposed last week.
What is the whole truth?
Musk at times has shown in his depositions the charm and wit he deploys on Twitter, where he has built a cult-like following.
The Twitter deposition atmosphere could be especially fraught. Its legal team includes the firm of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, and the main lawyer on the case, Bill Savitt, initially represented Musk and Tesla in the SolarCity deal, although not during discovery and depositions in the litigation.
Savitt did not respond to a request for comment.
Twitter is also represented by Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati.
A constant in the three depositions reviewed by Reuters is Musk’s dislike of attorneys representing the opposing side, who he accuses of “trickery” and pursuing him merely for money.
“I heard yesterday that 3% of the U.S. economy is legal services. That’s one of the saddest facts I’ve heard in a long time,” Musk said to Baron, the lawyer in the SolarCity deposition.
The deposition in the litigation with the Tesla whistleblower, Martin Tripp, who accused the company of wasting raw materials, began with Musk being asked if he understood the oath he took to testify truthfully.
“This sounds like some sort of legalese, semantic argument. The — what is the whole truth of something?” asked Musk, according to the transcript. “You say, ‘Is that a tree? What kind of tree is it? Is it a tree with lots of leaves?’ Or is — if you’re saying something is a tree is the whole truth? No, of course not.”
Tripp’s attorney reminded Musk that the judge warned he would oversee the deposition in person if questions weren’t answered properly.
“Do you intend to comply with the judge’s admonition there?” asked attorney William Fishbach.
“Of course,” Musk said.
© Thomson Reuters 2022
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WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger to Get AI Assistants; Meta Shows Off Image Generation Tool Emu
Meta showcased a host of new products and services, including the Meta Quest 3 mixed reality headset and a pair of smart glasses made in collaboration with Ray-Ban, at its Meta Connect annual conference on Wednesday. Alongside the hardware, the company also announced its own AI assistant, Meta AI, and a variety of AI experiences across Meta’s suite of apps and devices, including AI stickers in Meta apps and AI editing tools for Instagram. Meta AI, a conversational generative AI assistant much like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Microsoft’s Bing, will be available on WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram.
Meta AI will be powered by the company’s custom model that borrows from Meta’s large language model, Llama 2. The AI assistant, Meta said, will provide real-time information in response to text-based queries, trawling the internet via Bing search. Meta AI will also generate images based on text prompts. The AI assistant can help plan hiking trips with your friends in a group chat, prepare recipes, or help with your shopping list. Users can type in “@MetaAI /imagine” inside their chat box and follow it up with descriptive text prompts for what they want the AI assistant to do. Meta AI is also coming to the company’s latest devices, the Meta Quest 3 and the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses.
In addition to its default AI assistant, the company also showed off AI avatars with distinct personalities. Meta is bringing 28 AI characters, each with a unique backstory and behaviour. These AI characters can be conversed with in WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger, and will also include some public figures and influencers that Meta has partnered up with for their likenesses. Famous people coming as AI characters include Dwayne Wade, Kendall Jenner, Mr. Beast, Snoop Dogg and more.
Emu can generate stickers based on user prompts
Photo Credit: Meta
Meta is calling its image generation tool ‘expressive media universe’, or Emu. The tool can also quickly generate AI stickers based on a user’s text prompts inside apps like WhatsApp or Instagram to share with friends. “It’s high-quality, photorealistic,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said during the presentation. “But, one of the coolest things is the Emu generates that fast. It’s not a minute. It takes five seconds to generate one of these,” he added. This custom sticker generation feature will roll out to select English-language users over the next month in WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, and Facebook Stories.
The Facebook parent is also bringing new AI-powered image editing tools, specifically two new features — Restyle and Backdrop — that utilise technology from the Emu tool. Restyle acts as a kind of custom filter that works based on user prompts. Based on single descriptor or a more detail prompt, Restyle will edit your images to reflect a particular mood. And as the name suggests, Backdrop will let users change the background of their images based on custom prompts. Images created using both tools will carry markers that indicate the image is AI-generated. Meta said that Restyle and Backdrop were coming soon to Instagram but did not provide a concrete release date for the same.
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Meta Smart Glasses in collaboration with Ray-Ban were introduced on Wednesday alongside the Meta Quest 3 and other products. Users can livestream videos to Facebook and Instagram using the smart glasses, hands-free. The frame comes with a 12-megapixel camera sensor and an LED unit. This smart wearable succeeds the Ray-Ban stories, which were the company’s first smart glasses and was released in September 2021. However, unlike AR/VR headsets, the Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses do not feature a display unit.
Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses with standard lenses start at $299 (roughly Rs. 24,999), while Polarized lenses and transition lenses are priced at $329 (roughly Rs. 27,400) and $379 (roughly Rs. 31,500), respectively. It is offered in 150 different custom frame and lens design combinations.
The Ray-Ban Meta Smart glasses are currently available for pre-orders in 15 countries, including the US, Canada, Australia, and European markets. The sale of the smart glasses will start from October 17 in these regions. Meta has not revealed the India launch date of the Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses.
Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses specifications, features
A 12-megapixel sensor and an LED light, which doubles as a recording indicator are placed within two circular cutouts on either side of the Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses frame. Users can use the camera to take photos with a resolution of 3,024 x 4,032 pixels and 1080p videos of up to 60 seconds. With the Meta View app, the users can then share these media files to any other image/ video sharing apps.
The Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses also enable first person perspective livestreaming in which a user can stream whatever they are looking at with the glasses on in real time, to their respective Instagram and Facebook profiles. Users can also use the ‘Hey Meta’ prompt to enable handsfree functions.
Even though the Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses do not come with a display, the company claims, that compared to Ray-Ban Stories, the dual open-ear speakers in the new glasses offer less audio leakage and is said to bring up to 50 percent louder sound, deeper bass, and more clarity.
The Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses are powered by the new Qualcomm Snapdragon AR1 Gen1 Platform SoC and packs 32GB of inbuilt storage. Claimed to be sleeker in design than its preceding model, Meta says that the glasses come with up to four hours of battery life, and an additional 32 hours with the charging case. One full charge is claimed to take 75 minutes. The glasses also come with an IPX4 rating.
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WhatsApp is redesigning the chat interface on the Android version of its application, according to details shared by a feature tracker. The popular chat service is working on changing some of the colours in the app — this change will also affect how the app looks in dark mode. Meanwhile, some of the icons and buttons in the app are also being updated along with new colours. A redesigned version of WhatsApp for iOS is also in the works, with similar changes to colours and icons in the app.
On version 2.23.20.10 of WhatsApp beta for Android, feature tracker WABetaInfo spotted a refreshed version of the app’s interface that is still being developed by the Meta-owned chat platform. This means that you won’t be able to try out the new interface, even if you install the latest version of the app.
The redesigned chat list screen with updated icons and colour accents
Photo Credit: WABetaInfo
WhatsApp is working to introduce a redesigned camera icon in the main chat screen, while the solid video call and voice call, and camera icons inside individual chats and group chats have been replaced with outlines of the older ones. WABetaInfo has also shared screenshots showing the new icons in both light and dark modes.
The screenshots published by the feature tracker also show a new green colour in use across the app, that is slightly brighter than the existing shade. This applies to both the dark and light modes and includes the floating action button at the bottom right corner of the screen and the WhatsApp text at the top of the app.
The updated chat interface with updated icons, without the green bar at the top
Photo Credit: WABetaInfo
Last month, the feature tracker revealed that WhatsApp was planning on replacing its iconic green bar at the top of the app with white — allowing the app interface to turn black or grey in dark mode. Earlier this year, WhatsApp moved the chat, calls, and other tabs to the bottom of the app on Android, to match the app’s functionality on iOS.
These changes to the icons and colour palette were previously spotted by the feature tracker on WhatsApp beta for iOS 23.19.1.72. Both the iOS and Android versions of the app are expected to gain support for chat filters such as All, Unread, Contacts, and Groups. However, just like the changes to the colours and icons in the app, there’s no word on when we can expect to see the new chat filters on WhatsApp for iOS and Android.
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