A20 EZ SU THE WASHINGTON POST.TUESDAY, JUNE 7 , 2022
BY TAYLOR TELFORD
AND GERRIT DE VYNCKElon Musk threatened to back
out of his $44 billion deal to buy
Twitter, accusing the company of
“actively resisting” his requests
for information about how many
bogus accounts are on the social
media platform.
In a letter filed Monday with
the Securities and Exchange
Commission, Musk reiterated his
concerns from several weeks ago
that the company isn’t being
frank about how many fake ac-
counts are on its site.
“This is a clear material breach
of Twitter’s obligations under the
merger agreement and Mr. Musk
reserves all rights resulting there-
from, including his right not to
consummate the transaction and
his right to terminate the merger
agreement,” Musk’s legal team
wrote in the letter.
The Tesla CEO said in mid-May
that the deal was on hold as he
requested new info from Twitter
on how it determined how many
fake accounts were on its site.
Twitter said Monday it has been
sharing info with Musk and that
it intends to “close the transac-
tion and enforce the merger
agreement at the agreed price
and terms.”
The move adds to speculation
that Musk is trying to wriggle free
of the agreement, or renegotiate
it for a lower price, though securi-
ties law experts have said that
Musk backing out at this stage
could result in a protracted and
messy legal battle.
Musk waived his right to take a
deeper look at the company when
he signed the initial deal to buy it
in April, and the purchase agree-
ment allows Twitter to force
Musk to go through with the deal
unless he can show the company
misled him or in the case that a
major, adverse event changes the
value of the company.
Even if Twitter does not go to
court to force Musk to close the
deal, he may still have to pay a $
billion breakup fee.
“We believe this is much morethan a threat,” Dan Ives, manag-
ing director at Wedbush Securi-
ties, said. “He is trying to bail out
of the deal.”
Ives said the faulty account
issue was always going to be the
“material breach” Musk would
use to secure his exit. “It will help
remove a major overhang on
Tesla.”
Since he first voiced interest in
Twitter in April, Tesla’s stock —
the source of much of Musk’s
personal fortune — has been
pummeled amid a broader sell-
off of tech stocks.
Last week, he said Tesla would
cut salaried staff by 10 percent
and put a freeze on hiring, telling
executives in an email that he had
a “super bad feeling” about where
the economy was headed. (Over
the weekend, though, he back-
tracked, saying Tesla’s total head
count would increase while sala-
ried positions would be “fairly
flat.”)
Spam bots — accounts that
peddle cryptocurrency scams and
otherwise seek to exploit vulner-able users — have long been a pet
peeve of Musk, who is one of the
platform’s most popular users
with over 96 million followers
and who regularly encounters
such spam accounts on the site.
Twitter has long struggled to
identify and take down bots, a
task complicated by the fact that
the platform allows people to
post anonymously and to make
automated accounts. The compa-
ny’s own estimates put the num-
ber of spam accounts at 5 percent
or less, but Musk has been calling
for data the social media compa-
ny says it cannot provide to verify
the true figure.
On Monday, the Texas Attorney
General’s office said it would
investigate Twitter over the issue
of whether it has been upfront
about how many fake accounts it
believes it has. Tesla moved its
official headquarters to Texas last
year.
Twitter’s shares fell 1.49 per-
cent at the close of the market.
Tesla’s shares edged up 1.6 per-
cent.Musk t hreatens to back out of deal to buy Twitter over withholding data
2019 PHOTO BY ALY SONG/REUTERS
Elon Musk’s legal team said Twitter is breaching its duty to share
data on bogus accounts with him as he prepares to b uy the firm.BY JULIAN MARKSean Bickings pleaded for help
as he struggled to stay afloat in a
reservoir in Tempe, Ariz., late last
month. But Tempe police officers
watched without intervening as
Bickings went underwater and
did not come back up, according
to city officials and a transcript of
body-camera footage.
“I’m going to drown. I’m going
to drown,” said Bickings, 34, ac-
cording to a transcript of video
from the May 28 incident released
by city officials.
“Okay, I’m not jumping in after
you,” an officer, identified as Offi-
cer 1 in the transcript, said mo-
ments later, after directing Bick-
ings to grab onto a bridge.
“Please help me,” Bickings said.
“Please, please, please.”
Soon after, Bickings drowned,
according to a Friday news release
by city officials.
Now, three Tempe police offi-
cers have been put on “non-disci-
plinary paid administrative leave”
as the Arizona Department of
Public Safety and the Scottsdale
Police Department investigate the
officers’ response at the city of
Tempe’s request, city officials said.
The city has not released the
names of the officers.
In a statement, Police Chief Jeff
Glover and City Manager Andrew
Ching called Bickings’s death a
“tragedy.” Glover met with Bick-
ings’s mother last week, according
to officials.
The Tempe Officers Associa-
tion, the city’s police union, did
not immediately respond to a re-
quest for comment.
Just after 5 a.m. on May 28,
Tempe police officers responded
to an apparent disturbance be-
tween Bickings and a woman at
the Tempe Center for the Arts,
which sits on a promenade along
the Tempe Town Lake, a reservoir
in the city. In its statement, the city
referred to Bickings as “unshel-
tered.”
Body-camera footage released
by the city shows officers ap-proach and speak to a woman who
identified herself as Bickings’s
wife. As she picked up her belong-
ings off the ground, she explained
that she and Bickings sometimes
have disagreements but said that
he did not physically harm her.
Two of the officers then walked
over to Bickings, who was seated
on a bench facing the water, ac-
cording to the body-camera foot-
age. By this point, the officers
were running the couple’s names
for outstanding warrants, a stan-
dard procedure, according to the
city. The police later said Bickings
had three outstanding warrants,
the Arizona Republic reported.
But those did not come up dur-
ing Bickings’s encounter with po-
lice, according to the body-camera
footage, which shows the officers
trying to make small talk with
Bickings while running the check.
That’s when Bickings slowly
climbed over a short fence divid-
ing the boardwalk and the water.
When one of the officers asked
what Bickings was doing, Bick-
ings replied that he was going “for
a swim.”
“I’m free to go, right?” Bickings
asked.
The officers said he was not
allowed to swim in the lake, but
Bickings waded in and started
swimming a freestyle stroke
toward a bridge, according to the
body-camera footage.
“How far do you think he’s go-
ing to be able to swim?” one of the
officers asked, according to the
footage.
Two of the officers then walked
onto the bridge Bickings had
swum under and watched him,
according to the body-camera
footage, which at that point ends
“due to the sensitive nature of the
remaining portion of the record-
ing,” officials wrote at the end of
the video.
Instead, the city provided a
transcript of the remaining por-
tion, which indicates that Bick-
ings became increasingly dis-
tressed as he remained in the wa-
ter. Bickings told the officers hewas going to “drown,” according
to the transcript.
“No, you’re not,” an officer,
identified as Officer 2, replied.
Officer 1 then directed Bickings
to “go to the pylon and hold on.”
“I’m drowning,” Bickings said.
“Come back over to the pylon,”
Officer 2 said.
“I can’t,” Bickings said. “I can’t.”
“Okay, I’m not jumping in after
you,” Officer 1 said.
Bickings then begged for help
and said moments later, “I can’t
touch. Oh God. Please help me.
Help me.”
Bickings’s partner then joined
the officers and begged them to
help Bickings, according to the
transcript. The officers told her to
persuade Bickings to swim
toward the bridge pylon. She tried
and became increasingly upset. At
one point, according to the tran-
script, Bickings’s partner tried to
jump over the railing to help Bick-
ings but did not end up doing so.
“I’m just distraught because
he’s drowning right in front of you
and you won’t help,” Bickings’s
partner said.
The officers continued to tell
her to calm down, saying a third
officer was getting a boat.
“No, no, no. Swim,” the woman
replied, using an expletive.
“You’re not helping,” Officer 2
said.
Moments later, Officer 1 said
that Bickings “went underneath
and hasn’t come up since about 30
seconds ago.”
For the remainder of the tran-
script, the officers did not address
Bickings. Bickings’s partner con-
tinued to tell the officers that she
loved Bickings.
“He’s everything I got,” she said.
“I can’t lose him, he’s going to die.”
Officials said Bickings swam no
more than 40 yards before he be-
came distressed and “soon went
under and did not resurface.”
The Arizona Republic reported
that a team with Tempe Fire Medi-
cal Rescue pulled Bickings’s body
out of the water just before 11:
a.m.‘I’m not jumping in after you’: Whilepolice watch, man drowns in ArizonaNEITHER
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S0447A 3x
BY ALEX HORTON
AND KAROUN DEMIRJIANThe U.S. military is investigat-
ing whether an attack at a base in
Syria was conducted by an Amer-
ican service member, defense
officials said Monday.
Military officials initially said
the April 7 incident, which
wounded four U.S. troops, was a
result of indirect fire on the
facility known as Green Village
in eastern Syria, indicating they
believed it to be a mortar or
rocket strike. A week later, offi-
cials clarified that statement,
describing the attack instead as a
“deliberate placement of explo-
sive charges by an unidentified
individual(s) at an ammunition
holding area and shower facility.”
“A possible suspect, a U.S.
service member, has been identi-fied,” the Pentagon said in a
statement, adding that Army and
Air Force criminal investigators
have launched a joint investiga-
tion. “At this point, these are just
allegations, all suspects are pre-
sumed to be innocent until/un-
less convicted in a court of law.”
The statement offered no fur-
ther details, including whether
anyone had been taken into cus-
tody.
CNN first reported Monday
that the potential suspect is an
American service member.
The explosions took place in
the middle of the night, with a
security camera capturing foot-
age of a figure moving quickly
nearby, officials told the net-
work.
The explosives used were “not
insignificant,” with more power
than a hand grenade, officialstold CNN. The M67 hand grenade
contains 6.5 ounces of explo-
sives.
It is unclear how U.S. officials
erred when they initially as-
sessed that the attacks were
caused by indirect fire. Such
weapons typically produce
unique debris and shrapnel pat-
terns after falling through the
air. U.S. forces in Syria, including
those who operate from Green
Village, occasionally come under
indirect fire from militia groups
believed to be supported by Iran.
The four U.S. service members
wounded in the strike were treat-
ed for possible traumatic brain
injuries and other physical
wounds the military character-
ized as minor.
Fewer than 1,000 U.S. troops
are in Syria, principally to advise
local partner forces.Pentagon probes possible insider
attack that wounded 4 in Syria
S0114 3
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