API rate limits at the core of Elon Musk’s decision to ditch Twitter
- Reference: 1657506665
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/07/11/twitter_apis_elon_musk_acquisition/
- Source link:
Musk has made several public statements regarding his desire to know how many Twitter accounts are run by bots or are otherwise inauthentic, as he feels the number of dodgy accounts impacts the company's value. The billionaire therefore sought information on Twitter's methods of detecting and handling fake accounts before closing the deal.
One of the [2]documents [PDF] Twitter filed after Musk pulled the plug includes a letter from Musk's lawyers that details those efforts to source information.
Those APIs contained a rate limit lower than Twitter provides to its enterprise customers
One segment of the document claims that Musk and his team sought "a variety of board materials, including a working, bottom-up financial model for 2022, a budget for 2022, an updated draft plan or budget, and a working copy of Goldman Sachs' valuation model underlying its fairness opinion."
"Twitter has provided only a pdf copy of Goldman Sachs' final Board presentation."
[3]
Other disclosures, the document states, "come with strings attached, use limitations or other artificial formatting features, which has rendered some of the information minimally useful to Mr. Musk and his advisors.
[4]
[5]
"For example, when Twitter finally provided access to the eight developer 'APIs' first explicitly requested by Mr. Musk in the May 25 Letter, those APIs contained a rate limit lower than what Twitter provides to its largest enterprise customers.
"Twitter only offered to provide Mr. Musk with the same level of access as some of its customers after we explained that throttling the rate limit prevented Mr. Musk and his advisors from performing the analysis that he wished to conduct in any reasonable period of time.
[6]
"Additionally, those APIs contained an artificial 'cap' on the number of queries that Mr. Musk and his team can run regardless of the rate limit – an issue that initially prevented Mr. Musk and his advisors from completing an analysis of the data in any reasonable period of time," the document states.
Musk and his team raised the issue of query limits on June 29, but Twitter did not change the limit until July 6 – after Musk asked for its removal a second time.
[7]Elon Musk had secret twins in 2021 with Neuralink exec
[8]British Army Twitter and YouTube feeds hijacked by crypto-promos
[9]Totaled Tesla goes up in flames three weeks after crash
Not responding to the electric vehicle, tunnelling, AI, spaceborne internet access, tequila, and rocketry entrepreneur's requests for better access to API-delivered data added up to a situation in which Musk felt Twitter was in breach of the merger agreement.
So he pulled the plug, leaving open the questions of why Twitter might have provided only limited access to its APIs, or why it could not offer more access given it operates at significant scale.
If the decision was a tactic, it will doubtless become something for courts to consider – and Twitter's chairman Bret Taylor has already indicated the avian network intends to have the Delaware Court of Chancery hear the matter so the deal can be done.
[10]
Musk, for his part, spent the weekend tweeting about his space internet venture Starlink and suggesting that the twin children he acknowledged last week were part of his efforts to address humanity's population crisis. ®
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[1] https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/08/elon_musk_considering_drastic_action/
[2] https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001418091/26b24ef2-929f-496f-852c-645969e8269d.pdf#page5
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YsugbCGWBNl9q0x63ja-EAAAANY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YsugbCGWBNl9q0x63ja-EAAAANY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YsugbCGWBNl9q0x63ja-EAAAANY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YsugbCGWBNl9q0x63ja-EAAAANY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/07/elon_musk_secret_twins/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/04/british_army_social_media_hijcaked/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/23/tesla_model_s_explodes_after/
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YsugbCGWBNl9q0x63ja-EAAAANY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[11] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
So basically bullshit.
Goldman Sachs valuation model of Twitter is GS property, not Twitter. It's not Twitter's to give. The GS conclusion is what they paid for and it's what he could be given and was.
As for his API rate limit, his "unreasonable time" is 7 days. Does he imagine a judge would buy that as unreasonable?
Musk's attempt to back out of the deal, was in May 16th, a whole MONTH AND A HALF before he asks for an increase API usage limit!
He's screwed, if he's locked into the deal, he has to conclude the deal. It doesn't matter that his share price crashed, that's not Twitters shareholder's problem, that's his. He should have thought about these scenarios before trying to buy Twitter.
The whole thing stinks
Musk is 16 year old boy in a man-suit playing "less run a business". Twitter are simply the mouthpiece for any financial/political party willing to pay. Musk thought this would be an easy way to buy into a thriving business in the social media circus, a easy money spinner. Twiiter are more dodgy than family Trump and were looking for a way to make a killing off one Gen-Z's internet darlings as a figurehead. Musk actually has some adults working for him and he's finally listened to them as they told this is a huge waste of time and money. However it's too late and the whole thing now has to go to court while the two side bicker over who was right and who was wrong and how much Musk will have to cough up/surrender in order to back out of the deal he sto stupidly got himself into.
Ah, twitter
Where I can't view tweets in my "timeline" newer than a week old, yet if I post something about (say) Amazon or Google Maps, I get a bullshit vague bot response in less than 2 minutes signed by "Joe" or "Sally" or "Beth" completely unrelated to the tweet it's "replying" to.
I wish Musk could smash Twitter like Peter Thiel smashed Gawker.
Couldn't he...
use that money to get to Mars and populate it with clones of himself? The planet would advance so fast it would leave solar orbit, for the benefit of several universes.