{"id":1439066,"date":"2022-04-14T20:29:38","date_gmt":"2022-04-15T00:29:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1439066"},"modified":"2022-04-14T20:29:44","modified_gmt":"2022-04-15T00:29:44","slug":"saudi-princes-rejection-of-musk-offer-highlights-twitters-history-of-housing-alleged-saudi-spies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/saudi-princes-rejection-of-musk-offer-highlights-twitters-history-of-housing-alleged-saudi-spies\/","title":{"rendered":"Saudi Prince\u2019s Rejection Of Musk Offer Highlights Twitter\u2019s History Of Housing Alleged Saudi Spies"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">28<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fsaudi-princes-rejection-of-musk-offer-highlights-twitters-history-of-housing-alleged-saudi-spies%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1439066&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2022\/04\/GettyImages-1238367306-scaled.jpg?w=1200&#038;h=800&#038;ixlib=react-9.3.0\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>Elon Musk fired back Thursday at the Saudi investor who said he is rejecting Musk\u2019s offer to buy the popular social media platform because his $43 billion offer is too low.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t believe that the proposed offer by @elonmusk ($54.20) comes close to the intrinsic value of (Twitter) given its growth prospects,\u201d Prince Al Waleed bin Talal <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Alwaleed_Talal\/status\/1514615956986757127?s=20&#038;t=mFIMQWhmp76mhvQXe9FCKA\">tweeted<\/a> Monday morning, shortly after news of Musk\u2019s offer broke.<\/p>\n<p>In the same tweet, the royal described himself as \u201cone of the largest &#038; long-term shareholders of Twitter.\u201d His Riyadh-based conglomerate, Kingdom Holding Company, first purchased stock in the company in 2011 and, according to a screenshot bin Talal shared, now owns a 5.2% stake.<\/p>\n<p>Later that afternoon, the Space-X and Tesla CEO responded, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/elonmusk\/status\/1514683079968931841?s=20&#038;t=0ezq2A8SZlsY-eMsr4yHiQ\">tweeting<\/a>, \u201cInteresting\u2026What are the Kingdom\u2019s views on journalistic freedom of speech?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Saudi Arabia not only has a record of arresting and killing a journalist (according to both the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-europe-45812399\">U.N and U.S. intelligence<\/a>, the nation is responsible for the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi), it also has been accused of using Twitter to spy on dissidents and suppress speech critical of the crown.<\/p>\n<p>As first reported by\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/11\/06\/technology\/twitter-saudi-arabia-spies.html\">The New York Times<\/a>, in 2019, two Twitter employees \u2014 an engineer and media partnerships manager \u2014 who had access to the personal information and account data of millions of users were investigated by the Department of Justice for allegedly spying on behalf of the kingdom and using their positions to silence critics of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and other Saudi leadership.<\/p>\n<p>According to the report, Saudi intelligence operatives persuaded the Twitter spies to collect information on dissidents and activists who spoke against the crown. A human rights lawyer representing one of the targeted dissidents said at the time, \u201cThe Saudi regime is trying to silence any voices for freedom or reform.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In contrast, Musk made it clear in his SEC filing and during an interview for the TED Talk conference Thursday afternoon that his commitment to free speech is driving his interest in buying Twitter.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy,\u201d he wrote in the letter accompanying his offer.<\/p>\n<p>In his TED discussion, he emphasized the importance of having \u201cinclusive arenas\u201d for free speech and indicated he wants the social media platform to provide that service.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTwitter has become kind of the de facto town square, so it\u2019s really important that people have both the reality and the perception that they\u2019re able to speak freely,\u201d he said. \u201cSo there\u2019s no sort of behind the scenes manipulation, either algorithmically or manually.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies for breaking news, investigative reporting, sports, podcasts, in-depth analysis, books, and entertainment for a reason: because we believe in what we do. We believe in our country, in the value of truth and the freedom to speak it, and in the right to challenge tyranny wherever we see it. Believe the same?\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\">Become a member now and join our mission<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Elon Musk fired back Thursday at the Saudi investor who said he is rejecting Musk\u2019s offer to buy the popular social media platform because his $43 billion offer is too<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":112,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1439066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1439066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/112"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1439066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1439066\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1439066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1439066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1439066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}