3 ms·

It does appear Twitter's legal experts were also fired / laid off when Elon took the reins. When I first read it, I thought some of it sounded really amateur.

by ksaj 3y ago

It does appear Twitter's legal experts were also fired / laid off when Elon took the reins. When I first read it, I thought some of it sounded really amateur. I've read lots of lawyerese (I used to provide expert testimony in certain types of technical cases), and this did not come across like it was written by a legal expert of any level. Now reading this analysis, there are a lot more bells going off. I personally would disregard it - and if forced to respond, I would require a rewritten letter with an appropriate level of authority in its wording.

berberous 3y ago
The letter was sent by a partner at Quinn Emanuel, a well known and highly regarded litigation firm.
- dogmayor 3y ago
  Well known yes. Highly regarded ehh not so much. Anyways, what matters most is the attorney rather than the firm.
  - ksaj 3y ago
    The letter certainly isn't written in a "highly regardable" way. That's for sure. The vagueness alone is enough to realize it's aimless. I doubt I worked with lawyers at this particular level before, but their letters tended to be bullet proof in their detail and specificity. I would automatically question this one because it doesn't really say very much, yet takes 2 pages to attempt saying something.
- ahahahahah 3y ago
  I mean, sure. That partner was Alex Spiro, Musk's long time personal lawyer. I'm sure he's brought in enough money from Musk to earn partner regardless of the quality of his work. I mean, it's clear Musk works with him due to his willingness to charge after whatever nonsense Musk wants.
  - dogmayor 3y ago
    Exactly
jfray2k22 3y ago
The section that Spiro included about robots.txt belies just how amateurish this attempt is. That file has become the effective standard for instructing web scraping utilities, but is nothing more than a strong recommendation and is absolutely not legally binding in any way. It's bizarre that Spiro wouldn't already understand this, but even weirder that it appears he didn't even research the topic or have an associate/junior partner with more applicable tech knowledge give it the once over. Possibly, Spiro and Musk were provided that feedback and purposely ignored it due to their outsized egos. What's most obnoxious though is that Musk fired the employees in question while avoiding paying their agreed severance, and then has the gall to invoke the specter of non-compete agreements. I would hope that Spiro, or his firm, would at least be aware that non-competes are unenforceable in California and many other states. All of this shit is nutty as hell.

by ksaj 3y ago

berberous 3y ago

The letter was sent by a partner at Quinn Emanuel, a well known and highly regarded litigation firm.

dogmayor 3y ago
Well known yes. Highly regarded ehh not so much. Anyways, what matters most is the attorney rather than the firm.
- ksaj 3y ago
  The letter certainly isn't written in a "highly regardable" way. That's for sure. The vagueness alone is enough to realize it's aimless. I doubt I worked with lawyers at this particular level before, but their letters tended to be bullet proof in their detail and specificity. I would automatically question this one because it doesn't really say very much, yet takes 2 pages to attempt saying something.
ahahahahah 3y ago
I mean, sure. That partner was Alex Spiro, Musk's long time personal lawyer. I'm sure he's brought in enough money from Musk to earn partner regardless of the quality of his work. I mean, it's clear Musk works with him due to his willingness to charge after whatever nonsense Musk wants.
- dogmayor 3y ago
  Exactly

jfray2k22 3y ago

The section that Spiro included about robots.txt belies just how amateurish this attempt is. That file has become the effective standard for instructing web scraping utilities, but is nothing more than a strong recommendation and is absolutely not legally binding in any way. It's bizarre that Spiro wouldn't already understand this, but even weirder that it appears he didn't even research the topic or have an associate/junior partner with more applicable tech knowledge give it the once over. Possibly, Spiro and Musk were provided that feedback and purposely ignored it due to their outsized egos. What's most obnoxious though is that Musk fired the employees in question while avoiding paying their agreed severance, and then has the gall to invoke the specter of non-compete agreements. I would hope that Spiro, or his firm, would at least be aware that non-competes are unenforceable in California and many other states. All of this shit is nutty as hell.