As Hundreds of Twitter Workers Mass-Resign, Elon Musk Posts Stolen Memes

Picture this. You spent $44 billion on Twitter, which serves around 400 million people worldwide. Upon acquisition, you, for some reason, feel the need to haphazardly lay off half the around 7,500-person staff. Some of your ensuing made-on-a-whim decisions lead to even more staff leaving. You become fed up and decide to offer workers an ultimatum: Stay to work “extremely hardcore” hours or leave the company.

Unsurprisingly, most of those who remain decide to resign en masse.

By this point, a normal person would realize their mistakes. But not Elon Musk.

On Thursday, hundreds of Twitter employees resigned, many of them on teams critical to the functioning of the website. As doubt circulated about whether Twitter would even survive till the next day, Musk spent the night posting memes (and stealing some).

Or he just encouraged people to leave the website entirely.

As much as Musk’s behavior can be ridiculed, his actions—and inaction—warrant serious attention. Beyond the thousands of workers who have now lost their jobs, the platform itself has been crucial: in sharing news, connecting people together, and giving voice to the marginalized.

While Twitter may not crash all at once, its stability is now up in the air. It could shut down technically, financially, or even perhaps by regulatory oversight. Either way, the saga should disprove once and for all the notion that wealth or specialized success has anything to do with broader intelligence.

There was one notable absence from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s farewell speech: the man next presumed to take the gavel, Kevin McCarthy.

Pelosi stepped down from her party leadership position Thursday after almost two decades, though she will continue to represent her San Francisco district.

McCarthy, newly nominated to lead the Republicans when they take control of the House in January, did not attend the speech. He later told NBC it was because he “had meetings.”

It was a very different tune from when Pelosi attended her predecessor John Boehner’s farewell speech in 2015. She even gave him a standing ovation.

However, Pelosi did not attend outgoing speaker Paul Ryan’s farewell speech in 2018, saying she was “busy doing other things.” Donald Trump had been president for two years by that point, and the divisions in U.S. politics had become far more vicious.

During Pelosi’s own goodbye speech, she received multiple standing ovations, mostly from her fellow Democrats. Only a handful of Republicans joined in, a sign of both how divided the House is and how chaotic it will be under the GOP’s razor-thin majority.

Minority Whip Steve Scalise was the only senior House Republican to attend Pelosi’s speech. A survivor of politically motivated violence, Scalise stood to applaud when she mentioned her husband, Paul, who is still recovering from a brutal attack in the couple’s home.

As House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, and Majority Whip Jim Clyburn all step down from leading the Democratic caucus, a new trio of Democrats prepares to step up: Representatives Hakeem Jeffries of New York, Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, and Pete Aguilar of California.

And Jeffries is aiming for the top.

Chairman of the House Democratic caucus, Jeffries is seen by many as Pelosi’s successor. If elected by House Democrats, he would be the first Black party leader in either the House or Senate.

Jeffries, 52, was born and raised in Brooklyn, near the district he now serves. After earning graduate public policy and law degrees, he went on to work in corporate law for Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, a firm known for defending fossil fuel companies in at least 30 cases over the last five years.

Jeffries then worked for Viacom and CBS before getting elected to the New York State Assembly, serving from 2007 to 2012. Elected to Congress in 2013, Jeffries has, on one hand, been a prominent voice for liberal reform. As an assemblyman, Jeffries teamed up with then–state Senator Eric Adams to help pass a bill that banned police databases from storing the names of people detained but not arrested during stop-and-frisk procedures.

After an NYPD officer killed Eric Garner, Jeffries was one of the loudest voices on the Hill calling for an investigation. In 2015, Jeffries introduced a bill to make the use of a chokehold illegal under federal law. In 2018, Jeffries’s co-authored First Step Act passed, prompting the development of education, vocational, and mental health counseling programing for formerly incarcerated individuals.

On the other hand, Jeffries may give some progressives pause. In 2016, he criticized a unanimous U.N. resolution denouncing Israel’s settlement activity as a “flagrant violation” of international law. Jeffries argued that President Obama should have gone against the 14 nations who voted in favor of it and vetoed the resolution instead of abstaining.

Jeffries has also collected hundreds of thousands from industry donors embedded in investment, real estate, and lobbying. He has received the support of pro-Israel groups, including AIPAC, which has deliberately worked to tank Democratic candidates and support election denialists.

While insisting he is “progressive,” Jeffries finds a need to distinguish himself from the left. “I’m a Black progressive Democrat concerned with addressing racial and social and economic injustice with the fierce urgency of now,” Jeffries told The Atlantic last year. “There will never be a moment where I bend the knee to hard-left democratic socialism.”

Why he felt the need to distinguish himself from the left, and not also from other groups like corporate interests, is unclear.

Though Jeffries appears to be the party favorite, there are others vying for leadership positions—and some who may yet still announce their intentions. His win is not guaranteed, and it would be remiss to treat it as such.

Never one to waste words, Nancy Pelosi didn’t bother acknowledging Donald Trump in her farewell speech as speaker of the House on Thursday.

Pelosi stepped down from the position after leading the House Democrats for more than two decades, and as Republicans eked out control of the chamber.

“It has been my privilege to play a part in forging extraordinary progress for the American people,” she said during her speech. “I have enjoyed working with three presidents: achieving historic investments in clean energy with President George Bush; transforming health care reform with President Barack Obama; and forging the future, from infrastructure to health care to climate action, with President Joe Biden.”

Pelosi received multiple standing ovations during her speech from her fellow Democrats. Only a handful of Republicans joined in, a sign of how divided the House is and how chaotic it will be once the GOP takes over.

This is not the first time Pelosi has made her opinion of Trump clear. At the end of his 2020 State of the Union address, she stole his thunder by tearing up her copy of his speech. That was also the night of her highly memed, witheringly dismissive applause for the then president.

Pelosi said she will continue to represent her San Francisco district in the House even after leaving her leadership position. She has given no indication of whom she supports to succeed her, but the favorites include Representatives Hakeem Jeffries, Katherine Clark, and Pete Aguilar.

Republicans, meanwhile, will take control of the House when the new Congress is sworn in in January, having reached the 218-seat threshold for a majority overnight Wednesday, more than a week after Election Day.

Their majority will be razor-thin—only a handful of seats—and the party does not seem to be unified, with Kevin McCarthy facing opposition to his nomination for House speaker and moderate Republican Don Bacon saying he is willing to work with Democrats.

Now that Republicans have taken control of the House of Representatives, they’re starting to indicate what their next steps will be … and it’s nothing good.

First on the agenda appears to be a new investigation into a laptop owned by Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden. Biden’s computer—which supposedly contains proof of fraudulent financial practices—has for years been a favorite line of attack for Republicans.

On Thursday morning, just hours after Republicans secured control of the House, Representatives Jim Jordan and James Comer held a press conference accusing the president of participating in his son’s business dealings. Jordan is expected to chair the House Judiciary Committee and could launch a probe into the younger Biden, and even the entire family.

They also managed to slip in an accusation of human trafficking against the president.

Republicans are reportedly also planning to investigate current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Department of Justice for their treatment of those arrested for involvement in the January 6 attack on the Capitol.

And former Trump adviser and far-right bigot Stephen Miller was spotted walking into the office of Kevin McCarthy, the House Republicans’ newly nominated leader.

It is not known what the two men discussed, but considering Miller oversaw Trump’s most draconian immigration policies, spread election lies, and promoted articles from white nationalist groups, his presence on Capitol Hill does not bode well.

But there’s no guarantee the Republicans will be unanimous in these moves. McCarthy faced opposition to his nomination, and it’s unclear whether he will have the 218 votes necessary in the full chamber to become speaker.

Some moderate Republicans may cross the aisle to push back on their more extremist colleagues. Representative Don Bacon has already said he will work with Democrats to avoid gridlock and even put forward a more centrist speaker of the House.