The Daily Valet. - 10/28/22, Friday

✔️ The Bird Is Freed?

October 28, 2022

Friday, October 28th Edition

Cory Ohlendorf, Editor in Chief of Valet.

There’s another week. Where did October go?

Cory Ohlendorf , Editor ⋯ @coryohlendorf

Today’s edition is presented by

Today’s Big Story

Elon Musk Finally Owns Twitter

The world’s richest man closed the deal for the takeover and immediately fired some of the platform’s top executives

Elon Musk officially became Twitter’s owner late Thursday as his $44 billion deal to take over the company closed—ending a lengthy tug-of-war with its board of directors just before today’s court-imposed deadline. It no doubt marks a new era for one of the world’s most influential social media platforms.

The deal promises to reshape a major forum for social discourse, free speech and political rhetoric online just before the midterm elections. Musk, from the start of his takeover bid, sketched out a vision for Twitter that includes looser rules for what people can say.

But in a message to advertisers on Twitter on Thursday, Musk said he was buying the company to “have a common digital town square,” but that it “cannot become a free-for-all hellscape.” In his first comments since taking over, Musk tweeted just before midnight Thursday: “the bird is freed.”

That was right after he fired several top Twitter executives. CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal and general counsel Sean Edgett were all escorted out of Twitters’ HQ on Thursday. So was Vijaya Gadde, the platform’s longtime head of legal, policy and trust. Founder Jack Dorsey had put her in charge of major user account decisions like the one to permanently ban former President Trump. Musk has said he’d reverse that ban, but Trump has said he would not return and would instead remain on his Truth Social network.

Musk’s moves late Thursday signal his intentions to firmly put his stamp on Twitter, despite having no experience running a social media service. He’s told potential investors and partners that he wants to execute a financial turnaround of the company, but said despite earlier reports that he doesn’t plan on slashing 75% of Twitter’s workforce.

Twitter stock closed Thursday at $53.70 and the company’s shares will be suspended from trading today, the New York Stock Exchange’s website showed. During Tesla’s earnings call earlier this month, Musk admitted that he was “obviously overpaying” to buy the firm, but added he felt the “long-term potential for Twitter is an order of magnitude greater than its current value.” While Musk’s long-term plans for Twitter are still murky, the executive has called the company an “accelerant” for his goal of creating an “everything app” called X.

↦ DIG DEEPER: Here’s a real-time account of the twists and turns during the months-long legal battle.

U.S. Economy Returns to Growth

It’s definitely an economic turnaround, but don’t expect it to quiet recession calls

The government's official scorecard shows a rebound in economic growth during the late summer and early fall. America's gross domestic product grew at an annual rate of 2.6% in the third quarter, the Commerce Department said on Thursday, easing concerns about stagnating economic growth.

Our GDP had shrunk in the first half of 2022, leading many to believe that the U.S. was due to enter a recession. But NPR warns, don't expect the bounce-back to quiet the chorus of recession calls.

“The irony is, we're seeing the strongest growth of the year when things are actually slowing,” one economist told the Washington Post. “There are some real cracks in the foundation. Housing is contracting. The consumer is slowing. GDP is growing, but not for all of the right reasons.”

So a recession may still be coming. Or not. Or maybe it's already here. Perhaps we already muddled through one. The official arbiter of that distinction is the National Bureau of Economic Research, whose economists consider jobs, industrial production, retails sales and reams of other data to determine when a recession started and ended. If you recall, the last recession, in early 2020 at the start of the pandemic, lasted just two months.

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Climate Protesters Target More Art

An activist was arrested after gluing their head to ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’

So this is now a thing? Several demonstrators in Europe have recently glued themselves to the walls of famous museums while vandalizing iconic works of art as part of an attempt to raise awareness of the effects of oil production on the environment.

Back in May, for example, an activist smeared a pastry across the Mona Lisa at the Louvre. Two months later, demonstrators glued themselves to the frame of Leonardo da Vinci painting. Earlier this month, activists tossed tomato soup at one of Vincent van Gogh's most famous oil paintings and on Thursday, another protestor was arrested after gluing his head to Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring painting at a museum in the Netherlands.

If these protests seem annoying, unfair or upset you, well, that's the point. The protesters want to piss you off, because, hey, why aren’t you just as pissed off about the climate crisis? But the climate activism community has become deeply divided on the tactic.

Some say that generating headlines—which these activists are doing in spades—is critical because it does increase the relevance of the issue in the eyes of the public. And shifting what the public thinks about is crucial for those seeking to prompt positive change. But others say it's just downright embarrassing and wholly unfair to museums, which could see its insurance and security costs increase by hundreds of thousands of dollars.

↦ FYI: Did you know that Super Glue was invented by accident in 1942?

A Weekend Pairing

‘The White Lotus’ + a Negroni Sbagliato Cocktail

When The White Lotus debuted last year, it swiftly became everyone's favorite privilege-bashing-whodunnit. Mike White's acerbic drama, in which rich hotel guests wreak havoc on a posh Hawaiian resort, was as layered as it was niche; skewering Gen-Z wokeness, cringey entitlement and clickbait journalism. It won critical praise and, perhaps more importantly, much of the internet's attention.

What was originally only a limited series is now back for a second, highly-anticipated season, with Jennifer Coolodge back in her Emmy winning role as Tanya McQuoid, a fragile and flighty woman looking for inner peace. While the first season took place in Hawaii, this one shifts locales to Sicily, Italy at another White Lotus resort. Alongside Coolidge is a deep cast that includes F. Murray Abraham, Michael Imperioli, Theo James, and Aubrey Plaza. Reviewers are already raving. The Guardian says that “the immaculate show's writing is utterly unrivaled,” while NME confirms “the guests are still awful, but the show is still utterly addictive.”

↦ Your Pairing:What else would I suggest for this pairing, but a classic Italian cocktail (with recent ties to another hit HBO show), the Negroni Sbagliato ... with prosecco in it. Instead of the Negroni's requisite gin, the Sbagliato uses sparkling wine. It can either be served on the rocks or up, in a Champagne flute—there's no wrong way to enjoy this fizzy, bitter tipple.

In Other News

↦ Women Care Deeply About Abortion in the Midterms, Poll Finds. Men, Not So Much.

↦ Here Are a Dozen Things You Didn’t Know About Halloween

↦ The World’s First Formula 1 Arcade Opens in London Next Month

Other Things We’re Talking About Today

Homer Simpson Stan Smiths?

Long live the jump scare

A Margiela Smartphone

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Knee replacement surgery is more popular than you probably realize. Athletes from John Elway to Tiger Woods have had joint-replacement surgery. It's such a popular procedure that it's estimated to be performed over 800,000 times annually in the United States alone—and that figure increases every year.

But here's the thing: Around 100,000 knee replacements fail each year. One out of every five patients aren't satisfied with the results and up to a third of all total knee replacements have chronic pain after their operation. Why? Well, many believe it's because current joint replacements are generic, one-size-fits-all implants that cause problems later on, and surgical methods are downright medieval.

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