Hollywood super-agent and Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel reportedly tried to broker a deal between Elon Musk and Twitter’s board of directors to settle their heated legal battle over a nixed $44 billion takeover.

Emanuel – who was spotted partying with a shirtless Musk aboard a yacht off Mykonos over the summer – contacted Twitter board member Egon Durban within the last few weeks to recommend the two sides reach a settlement before their case goes to trial, a report said on Friday.

Durban relayed details about his talks with Emanuel to Twitter’s other board members, Bloomberg reported, citing sources familiar with the matter.

Twitter declined comment. Musk’s team did not immediately return The Post’s calls. The Post also reached out to Endeavor for comment on the report.

Twitter’s stock was up about 3% to roughly $44 per share in late trading Friday.

It’s unclear what prompted Emanuel to get involved in the high-stakes legal battle or whether his overtures yielded any progress toward a settlement, according to Bloomberg.

Emanuel is closely linked to Durban, who is also a member of Endeavor Group Holdings’ board of directors. Musk was a board member at Endeavor until he stepped down earlier this year.

Musk caused a stir in July when he was photographed hanging out with Emanuel and his wife Sarah Staudinger on the luxury yacht. Photos of the vacation buddies sparked countless memes and even led Musk to declare it was time for him to get back in shape.

Emanuel’s apparent back-channel efforts emerged just weeks before the highly anticipated trial is slated to kick off on Oct. 17.

“It makes me think Elon doesn’t have some kind of stellar ace for the trial,” a hedge fund manager closely following the situation told The Post. “I’d have to presume Ari is not going rogue here.”

Twitter is seeking a court order that would force Musk to buy Twitter along the originally-agreed sale terms of $54.20 per share, or about $44 billion.

Meanwhile, Musk is attempting to back out of the deal entirely. His legal team has cited concerns about spam bots within Twitter’s user base and accused company representatives of withhold critical information related to that issue.

Musk’s legal team and Twitter are still sparring over key deposition dates ahead of the trial. A court filing this week said Musk would be deposed by Twitter’s lawyers on Oct. 6 and 7, though a source told The Post the date has yet to be finalized.

Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal is also slated to be deposed prior to the trial. He withdrew from a scheduled deposition on Monday due to unspecified personal reasons.

The delayed depositions sparked rampant speculation that the two sides were in settlement talks, but Twitter shares tanked after The Post reported a source close to the situation said no settlement was immediately expected.

Josh Kosman contributed reporting.

Lefty Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner claimed violent crime was worse in “Trump states” — as he denied his soft-on-crime policies were to blame for his city’s soaring crime rate.

Krasner’s bold statements came during a fiery interview with Fox29’s “Good Morning Philadelphia” Wednesday, when he was grilled by anchor Mike Jerrick a day after five teens were shot at a high school.

“These states in the United States that have a rate of homicide that is 40% higher are MAGA states, they are Trump states,” the top prosecutor said, referring to states where the majority of residents voted for Donald Trump in the last election. 

Jerrick countered that Republicans have claimed the rising crime rates were largely limited to “blue” states.

“Republicans lie!” Krasner cried out. “I mean, let’s just get down to it. Republicans lie. That is what they do.”

After his answer was met with a pushback from Jerrick, Krasner conceded that “not all” Republicans lie, but said that “the MAGA ones do.” The DA then said that eight of 10 of the most violent cities were “Trump ones.”

As of Thursday, more than 1,700 people have been shot in the City of Brotherly Love, which set a record last year with 561 homicides. So far this year, there have been 403 slayings, according to the city’s controller’s. Armed robberies were up 59% and commercial burglaries increased nearly 50%.

During the heated exchange, Jerrick also grilled Krasner on what he described as the DA’s “perception problem.”

“There is a perception in this city that the reason for all this gun violence is you,” Jerrick said.

“I don’t,” Krasner shot back, before launching into an argument whose main thrust was that he won re-election in 2021 in a landslide, suggesting that the people of the city — especially those living in high-crime areas — support his policies.

Jerrick interjected, saying that “every cop” he’s ever spoken to has said that Krasner’s policies are “too lenient.”

Krasner, who was first elected as DA in 2017, said that he and other reform prosecutors were being unfairly blamed for rising crime rates for “political reasons,” even though there were multiple factors at play.

“And you are a reform district attorney,” Jerrick interrupted him again. “Everybody in the country knows that. Maybe it’s not working.”

Krasner insisted that his policies were working, only to have Jerrick cut him off again, exclaiming while grabbing his head in frustration: “There’s 1,000 people killed in 20 months!”

Defiant, Krasner pressed on with his talking points, arguing that “there is absolutely no correlation between being progressive or traditional and the rate of crime.”

Krasner’s contentious interview on Fox 29 show came a day after five teens were shot, one fatally, while leaving the field after a football scrimmage at Roxborough High School.

Jerrick asked Krasner if he had thought of resigning, to which the DA replied: “No, because the fact is that Philadelphia voted for me overwhelmingly because they want what we are doing.”

I have a movie quote for Apple. It’s from a little Bill Murray flick called “Stripes.”

“Lighten up, Francis.”

The tech giant has reportedly forced out Tony Blevins, a top executive and one of only 30 employees who reports directly to CEO Tim Cook, after he repeated a bawdy quote (albeit with his own flair) from the 1981 Dudley Moore classic “Arthur.”

To summarize this corporate criminalization of comedy: Blevins, the VP of procurement for Apple, was at a California car show in August when TikToker Daniel Mac, who is known for asking people in fancy cars what they do for a living, turned his camera and question to Blevins.

“I have rich cars, play golf and fondle big-breasted women,” Blevins said while exiting his pricey Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren. “But I take weekends and holidays off.”

The woman who was with him, and presumably truly knows him, was hardly offended. She cackled like she was in the presence of a reincarnated Richard Pryor.

The video eventually went viral and came to the attention of Apple bosses, who launched an internal investigation into the matter. Though they could have saved the time and labor and instead hunkered down for a Liza Minelli movie marathon.

Blevins — who joined the company in 2000 — saw his 22-year tenure torched by a seconds-long video. On his way out, he apologized, calling it “my mistaken attempt at humor.”

It would seem that the good folks who made my iPhone not only lack a general appreciation for good cinema but have quite a shortcoming in the grace department.

Beyond the gross overreaction, canning top talent over a harmless pop culture reference is a bizarre path to innovation for the world’s top tech company. According to a 2020 WSJ profile of Blevins, he will “stop at little to get a favorable deal. He has paraded manufacturers past competitors in Apple’s lobby and spurned a UPS contract by sending it back to UPS executives through FedEx.”

Clearly, the man has a unique gift for doing his job that has allowed him to rise to the top of his industry. Imagine an NFL team cutting a Pro Bowl cornerback during the playoffs because he uttered an off-color movie quote or song lyric.

“You’re leading the league in interceptions but you gotta pack up your locker and go, son.”

Blevins was clearly parodying an already outrageous fictional character, but that doesn’t matter. A scold mentality has infested corporate America, turning us into tattletale, PC robots more interested in unearthing microaggressions than doing an effective job.

Perhaps one can argue that Blevins’ great blunder was simply participating and being playful. And maybe that’s true. But we are given mixed messages from our cultural overlords about what is and isn’t kosher. On Apple TV’s “Gutsy,” Hillary Clinton interviews rapper Megan Thee Stallion about her orifice opus “WAP” and gives her the deference she would a head of state.

We praise the libertines one day and yell at others to be prudes the next. The pearl-clutching is schizophrenic at best.

Humor used to be a uniting and essential force in our society — a salve soothing over our rough differences. As the great Joan Rivers once said, “If we didn’t laugh, where the hell would we all be?”

Sadly, we have the answer in 2022: We are infantilized adults living in a romper room simulation.

And as we increasingly capitulate to this mentality, we are also voluntarily dragging ourselves into the loser bracket.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi caused outrage Friday when she attempted to justify waves of illegal migration to the US by claiming Florida farmers needed the new arrivals to “pick the crops down there.”

The California Democrat made the stunning remarks during a news conference at which she agreed that US has a responsibility to secure the border, but should also “recognize the importance of newcomers to our nation.”

“Right now, the best thing that we can do for our economy is comprehensive immigration reform,” Pelosi told reporters after being asked if she thought the southern border was secure following more than two million arrests of illegal crossers over the past 12 months.

“We have a shortage of workers in our country, and you see even in Florida, some of the farmers and the growers saying: ‘Why are you shipping these immigrants up north? We need them to pick the crops down here,’” she mused.

Without mentioning any names, Pelosi’s comments were an obvious dig at Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis after he orchestrated the transfer of dozens of migrants from Texas to the wealthy liberal enclave of Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts earlier this month.

DeSantis’ fellow Republican governors — Greg Abbott of Texas and Doug Ducey of Arizona — have already bussed hundreds of migrants to so-called “sanctuary cities”, including New York and Washington DC, this year.

Pelosi received furious backlash on Twitter — with many accusing her of suggesting the US should take open its borders to take advantage of “cheap foreign labor.”

Arizona GOP Rep. Andy Biggs tweeted: “It’s clear Pelosi and Democrats are exploiting illegal aliens and only view them as cheap labor.”

Other critics accused Pelosi of racism for stereotyping migrants as farm workers.

“Nancy Pelosi thinks immigrants should be picking crops,” the Republican National Committee’s RNC Latinos Twitter account posted. “When Democrats show you their true colors, believe them.”

“Hard to believe immigrants who have become American citizens are starting to vote Republican when the leader of the congressional Democrat party views them only as fruit pickers,” tweeted Republican consultant Nathan Wurtzel.

The Federation for American Immigration Reform added: “For Democrats, mass immigration checks two boxes: 1. More future voters 2. Cheap foreign labor.”

“Nancy Pelosi truly is the spitting image of Lucille Bluth,” Jason Howerton said, referring to the “Arrested Development” character played by Jessica Walter. “So out of touch it almost feels like satire.”

“The Martha’s Vineyard migrant flight is the gift that just keeps on giving,” cracked Washington Examiner commentary editor Conn Carroll.

“I want you to imagine for a second what would happen if Trump said ‘we need the immigrants down south to pick our crops’ instead of Pelosi,” mused Caleb Hull.

Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott will face Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke Friday in their first – and likely only – debate ahead of the Nov. 8 election, with the ongoing border crisis the dominant issue facing the Lone Star State.

Polls have shown Abbott consistently leading O’Rourke, who became a national figure in 2018 by narrowly losing to Sen. Ted Cruz — raising hopes among national Democrats that the reliably red state could soon turn purple, or even blue.

“Here’s the way I see it: Most Texans are just beginning to tune into this election,” O’Rourke, 50, said ahead of the showdown in the Rio Grande Valley city of Edinburg.

But Abbott, who leads the Democrat by eight percentage points in an average of polls measured by RealClearPolitics, has been undaunted even as O’Rourke outraised the two-term incumbent with at least a $30 million haul in the first half of this year.

“This game ain’t over yet, and we’ll see how close it is when all is said and done,” Abbott said earlier this month.

O’Rourke has employed attacking rhetoric on the campaign trail and is expected to do the same at the debate, going after Abbott over the state’s near-total ban on abortions and the Republican’s hands-off view of gun control in the wake of the May 24 Uvalde school massacre that left 19 children and two teachers dead.

Texas’ abortion restrictions have no exemption for rape, and access to the procedure has been curbed further in the wake of the June Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade. Abbott has also taken some criticism for his response to the Uvalde shooting, but it’s unclear whether O’Rourke’s views on guns, including past support for a ban on AR-15-style firearms, will be a liability in Texas.

O’Rourke is now calling to raise the legal age to buy the weapons to 21 – a move which Abbott is firmly against.

“If Beto can coax Abbott into a moment where there’s a stark difference on, say, gun control, I think that can have a big impact,” Jason Villalba, who runs the Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation, told the AP. “But to do that you have to be aggressive and take large risks.”

Abbott, meanwhile, is expected to stay focused on immigration as the ongoing surge at the border has created a humanitarian crisis and national political debate. There were a record 2 million illegal border crossings logged in the last 11 months, according to figures released this month by US Customs and Border Protection.

The incumbent is expected to trumpet his “Operation Lone Star” program which sent state police and National Guard to assist border municipalities.

But despite the hype, it may be difficult for either candidate to move the needle significantly.

In a Quinnipiac University poll of likely voters released Wednesday, 96% of respondents said they had already made up their minds about for whom to vote.

A large plurality of voters (38%) ranked the border as the most urgent issue facing Texas, followed by abortion (17%) and inflation (11%). No other issue cracked double digits, with gun policy coming closest as the top issue of 8% of voters.

“The race for the top job in Austin leans toward Abbott, who has very strong support from white Texans, particularly white men, while O’Rourke has overwhelming appeal among Black voters and strong support among young voters,”Quinnipiac University Polling Analyst Tim Malloy said in a statement.

A statewide Democratic victory would not only send political shockwaves across the largest Republican-led state, but could mean a different-looking electoral map when it comes to future presidential races.

O’Rourke came within 3 percentage points of unseating Cruz in 2018 but Republicans have held a vice grip on statewide politics even as Democratic support has surged in the state’s urban centers and among black voters, polling has showed.

Friday’s debate will also mark the first time the candidates meet in person since O’Rourke confronted Abbott at a briefing after the Uvalde shootings.

“The time to stop the next shooting is now and you’re doing nothing!” O’Rourke yelled at Abbott before he was escorted away by security.

With Post wires