Hey, keep in mind a pair weeks again, when an 18-year-old gunman entered a Uvalde, Texas, elementary college and murdered 19 kids and two adults with the weapon he’d purchased simply days earlier? And the police inexplicably waited outdoors? After which quite a few components of their story modified re: why they’d screwed up the state of affairs so badly? As we assume the reply to all these questions is sure, you may most likely additionally inform us why this announcement from the Texas legal professional basic’s workplace is totally and completely weird:

Sure, that is the Texas AG alerting folks that some portion of his workplace’s time will probably be devoted to investigating spam accounts on Twitter. Are bots annoying? Certain. Would Twitter be higher off with out them? Most likely. Do most Texans care that a lot about them, to the extent that they suppose they want “defend[ing]” by the Texas AG? We’ll take a wild guess right here and say no. However who’s extraordinarily involved concerning the Twitter bot state of affairs, insofar as he seems to be attempting to make use of it to get out of the deal he signed to purchase the tech big? come on down, Elon Musk.

As CNBC notes, the Texas AG’s probe was launched the exact same day that the richest man on this planet threatened to again out of his settlement to buy Twitter for $44 billion (or $54.20 per share), over issues about bots. In a letter his attorneys despatched to the corporate, the Musk representatives declare that Twitter has been “resisting and threating” the Tesla cofounder’s proper to data re: the variety of faux accounts on the positioning, and that the alleged resistance constitutes a “clear materials breach” of the phrases of their settlement. Musk has been whining concerning the bot state of affairs for a while now in an apparent try to again out of the deal, however as Bloomberg’s Matt Levine wrote on Monday, the pretext that Twitter supposedly has extra faux accounts than he thought wasn’t truly a superb one—in truth, certainly one of Musk’s said causes for purchasing the positioning was to, in his personal phrases, “defeat the spam bots or die trying!”—so his attorneys got here up with the one about him attempting to get knowledge from Twitter and Twitter saying no. (As Levine additionally writes, it is simple to see why Twitter wouldn’t need to hand over delicate consumer knowledge to Musk, given (1) the numerous “regulatory and threat causes to be nervous about sharing consumer knowledge with somebody who, for now no less than , doesn’t work at Twitter” and (2) the truth that Musk is very large troll.)

Anyway, why is the Texas legal professional basic’s workplace spending actually any time on this, time that might be higher spent wanting into what occurred in Uvalde final month? Here is the place we remind you that Texas’s legal professional basic is Ken Paxton who, along with having been personally indicted for felony securities fraud—he is pleaded not responsible and has but to face trial—is a Donald Trump superfan. In different phrases, he is acquired a sort, and it is conservative blowhards who attempt to use the federal government to go after their enemies. In the meantime, Paxton’s investigation just isn’t solely a ridiculous waste of Texans’ taxpayer {dollars}, however as Marc Fagel, a securities legislation professional, instructed CNBC, it does not even fall underneath his job description. “States aren’t essentially outfitted to do that type of subtle investigation,” Fagel mentioned. “It is one factor if you happen to’re coping with an area firm, however if you happen to’re speaking a few nationwide, publicly traded firm in one other state, that is the province of the SEC.” As Levine wrote right now, “Paxton is blissful to hitch himself to [Musk’s stunt]: If he harasses Twitter on Musk’s behalf, he’ll endear himself to Musk’s followers on-line, which appears worthwhile for an elected official although not, after all, for his constituents, or for the rule of legislation.”