If we’re evaluating on a share-price basis, 2018 was a pretty good year for Twitter, whose stock rose 17 percent despite the fact that the social-media platform has become an online cesspool of trolls, white nationalists, and terrible takes, with Donald Trump serving as the glue that keeps the whole thing together. Probably not super helpful for the company’s stock? C.E.O. Jack Dorsey saying out loud, in the presence of a reporter, that the company basically has no real plans for dealing with the neo-Nazis who’ve proliferated on the site.

In an interview with Rolling Stone published Wednesday, Dorsey was asked about the frequent calls to “get the Nazis off Twitter,” to which he initially offered the near-incomprehensible response, “[The topics of] abuse and our policies have been much more pronounced recently. And it comes in the form of categorizing people as Nazis and wanting them removed. People are definitely not satisfied with our progress there. It’s not as simple as what the reply would indicate, but it is work that needs to be done.” Then, after being informed that the site has not gotten rid of a number of “professed white nationalists,” despite supposedly having a policy whereby accounts aligning with such groups are suspended, Dorsey essentially blamed non-Nazi Twitter users for failing to do the company’s job, before praising the platform for all the progress’s apparently made:

A lot of the calls for “remove the Nazis” are also due to the fact our enforcement operates on reporting. A lot of people don’t report. They see things, but it’s easier to tweet out “get rid of the Nazis” than to report it. We need to be more proactive, but a lot of it has to do with the friction of everything relying on it being reported in the first place. Two years ago, you could only report it if you were the direct recipient of either a reply or a threat, or some abusive behavior. Whereas today, you can be a bystander and report it.

That was basically the same answer Dorsey gave Ringer founder Bill Simmons during another interview released Wednesday, when asked about the site’s problems with harassment in general. “I don’t think there’s going to be one single fix. I think it’s going to be a constant evolution,” he said. “I will say that we don’t feel great about the state that we’re in. Our entire harassment and abuse framework is dependent upon people reporting harassment and abuse, and it’s completely unfair that the victim of the abuse and harassment has to report it themselves.” Following the publication of both interviews, Twitter’s share price fell as much as 4 percent.

Elsewhere in unfortunate Dorsey chats, earlier this month he weirdly refused to say whether or not Donald Trump would be banned for encouraging violence against journalists, in this exchange for the ages with the Huffington Post’s Ashley Feinberg:

H.P.: So then is there anything that, say, Donald Trump could do that would qualify as a misuse? Because I know the newsworthy aspect of it outweighs a lot of that. But is there anything that he could do that would qualify as misusing the platform, regardless of newsworthiness?

J.D.: Yeah, I mean, we’ve talked about this a lot, so I’m not going to rehash it. We believe it’s important that the world sees how global leaders think and how they act. And we think the conversation that ensues around that is critical.

H.P.: O.K., but if Trump tweeted out asking each of his followers to murder one journalist, would you remove him?

J.D.: That would be a violent threat. We’d definitely. . . . You know we’re in constant communication with all governments around the world. So we’d certainly talk about it.

H.P.: O.K., but if he did that, would that be grounds to—

J.D.: I’m not going to talk about particulars. We’ve established protocol, it’s transparent. It’s out there for everyone to read. We have, independent of the U.S. president, we have conversations with all governments. It’s not just limited to this one.

In a statement, a Twitter spokesperson told The Hive: “We have policies that explicitly state that account holders cannot harass, intimidate, or threaten someone on the basis of them belonging to a protected category. This includes race, religion, and sexual orientation. In addition, we are one of the first companies to expand the scope of our policy that focuses on violent extremist groups, which prohibits accounts holders who affiliate with organizations that – whether by their own statements or activity both on and off the platform – use or promote violence against civilians to further their causes.”

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Jack Dorsey recalls the time Mark Zuckerberg served him cold goat

Elsewhere in Dorsey’s interview with Rolling Stone, the Twitter C.E.O. told writer Brian Hiatt about what it’s like eating dinner at Mark “I only eat what I kill with my bare hands” Zuckerberg’s house:

He made goat for me for dinner. He killed the goat . . . He kills it with a laser gun and then the knife. Then they send it to the butcher . . . Evidently, in Palo Alto, there’s a rule or regulation that you can have six livestock on any lot of land, so he had six goats at the time. I go, “We’re eating the goat you killed?” He said, “Yeah.” I said, “Have you eaten goat before?” He’s like, “Yeah, I love it.” I’m like, “What else are we having?” “Salad.” I said, “Where is the goat?” “It’s in the oven.” Then we waited for about 30 minutes. He’s like, “I think it’s done now.” We go in the dining room. He puts the goat down. It was cold. That was memorable. I don’t know if it went back in the oven. I just ate my salad.

Mark Zuckerberg, consummate host.

White House: O.K., fine, the shutdown could destroy economic growth

From the people who brought you federal workers are “better off” being furloughed, comes this:

As the shutdown stretches into the 33rd day and roughly 800,000 federal employees are poised to miss a second paycheck, Kevin Hassett told CNN that the shutdown could contribute to a dramatic drop in gross domestic product growth. Hassett, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, added that first quarters generally show a marked decrease in G.D.P. growth compared with other quarters because of “residual seasonality,” which describes the decrease in growth after heightened end-of-year spending. But mixed with the shutdown, that growth can slow down as low as zero, he said.

“Could we get zero growth? I want to nail this down,” CNN’s Poppy Harlow asked Hassett.

“Yes. We could, yes,” Hassett responded. “If [the shutdown] extended for a whole quarter, and given the fact that the first quarter tends to be low because of residual seasonality, then you could end up with a number close to zero in the first quarter.”

While it’s almost unimaginable that the government would remain closed for the entire first quarter, as of Wednesday there appeared to be no end in sight for the shutdown; a pair of bills is widely expected to fail in the Senate on Thursday, while the president spent the morning threatening to blather on about the wall for another two years.

Surprise: guy worth $31.5 billion doesn’t like the idea of paying more taxes

Following comments by fellow billionaires that increasing taxes on the Über-wealthy would be “disastrous” for the economy, Michael Dell chimed in Wednesday to pan Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s outrageous request that the nation’s 0.00000001 percent pay their “fair share“:

Some hedge-fund managers are faring better than others

On the one hand, 2018 was the worst year for hedge funds since 2011, with an average decline of 4.1 percent on a fund-weighted basis. On the other:

Hedge-fund billionaire Ken Griffin closed a deal to buy the most expensive home ever sold in the U.S., paying around $238 million for a New York penthouse overlooking Central Park.

The deal is the largest in Griffin’s recent $700 million global real-estate shopping spree, believed to be the largest ever for a U.S. billionaire. Over the past few years, the founder and C.E.O. of Citadel has purchased the most expensive homes in Chicago, Miami, and New York. He has spent more than $200 million to buy land in Palm Beach, Florida, for a home he plans to build there. And this week, news broke that he purchased a $122 million property in London, which was the most expensive sale in that city in a decade.

Citadel’s flagship fund was reportedly “expected to be up more than 9 percent in the year,” so it’s not surprising Kenny boy decided to treat himself to something nice. In a statement, a spokesperson for Griffin said he bought the 24,000-square-foot penthouse “so he’ll have a place to stay when he’s working in New York.”

Elsewhere!

Fed to Probe Deutsche Bank Over Suspicious Danske Cash (Bloomberg)

Venezuela breaks diplomatic ties with U.S. after Trump recognizes opposition leader as president (San Diego Union-Tribune)

Seth Klarman Pisses In The Davos Punch (Dealbreaker)

Hedge-fund manager David Einhorn explains why he lost more than 30 percent last year: “Nothing went right” (CNBC)

U2’s Bono and TPG Launch Company to Measure “Impact Investments” (W.S.J.)

Big U.S. Banks Are Letting Stress Tests Make Decisions for Them (Bloomberg)

— The family drama surrounding Joe Biden’s presidential bid

— What to make of the BuzzFeed-Mueller mystery

— A happy ending for one Fyre Festival contractor

— Intrigue in Murdoch-land

— Yes, Schitt’s Creek really is that good

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