What Next: TBD | Tech, power, and the future - Senator Chris Murphy on Elon's Acquisition of Twitter
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3.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 11 November 2022
⏱️ 17 minutes
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Summary
The second largest investor in Twitter, after Elon Musk, is the Saudis, which raises questions about what kinds of “free speech” Musk is really committed to. But it also raises questions around national security in the U.S.
Guest: Chris Murphy, U.S. Senator from Connecticut
Host: Lizzie O’Leary
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | On October 31st, Halloween, Senator Chris Murphy sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet |
| 0:12.7 | Yellen. |
| 0:13.7 | Murphy is a Democrat from Connecticut, who sits on the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee. |
| 0:19.1 | And he had some questions about Twitter, specifically about the Saudi stake in Twitter. |
| 0:25.2 | The Kingdom Holding Company, and the private office of Prince Awli Bin Talal, owned Twitter |
| 0:30.5 | shares worth $1.89 billion. |
| 0:34.8 | They held onto that stake when Twitter went private under Elon Musk's control. |
| 0:39.7 | The Saudis are now the second largest investor in Twitter, which, for Murphy, raises some |
| 0:44.5 | potential national security concerns that he would like to see evaluated by the Committee |
| 0:49.3 | on Foreign Investment in the United States, also known as CIFIAS. |
| 0:54.9 | In a press conference on Wednesday, President Biden seemed to agree. |
| 0:59.1 | I think that Elon Musk's cooperation and or technical relationships with other countries |
| 1:20.2 | is worthy of being looked at. |
| 1:23.8 | Whether or not he is doing anything inappropriate, I'm not suggesting that, I'm suggesting |
| 1:29.4 | that it's worth being looked at, but that's all I'll say. |
| 1:39.5 | So I called up Senator Murphy on Thursday afternoon to talk about it, and some of the other |
| 1:44.3 | major tech challenges facing Congress. |
| 1:47.5 | Senator, welcome to the show. |
| 1:49.0 | Thanks for having me. |
| 1:50.0 | I'm going to do a quick disclosure that we did go to college together, though you were |
| 1:54.1 | two years ahead of me, but just so that's out there. |
| 1:57.1 | Holder and Wiser. |
... |
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