Status: 07/09/2022 07:35 a.m
The dazzling entrepreneur Musk resigns from the purchase of the short message service Twitter. It is the temporary end of a planned takeover full of ups and downs. Does Musk now have to pay a billion?
It wasn’t a real love affair from the start: Elon Musk criticized that Twitter does not allow real freedom of expression, and there are too many spam and fake accounts. The planned deal caused a bad mood among some employees on Twitter.
Musk has now sent a letter saying that he does not want to go through with the takeover after all. The reason, according to his lawyers: Twitter has not provided complete information on the number of fake accounts. In the past, Twitter had estimated the number at less than five percent.
“Reached the Boiling Point”
Economic reporter Kurt Wagner told Bloomberg that he was not surprised that the takeover was in danger of collapsing: “We saw that it was going in this direction. Elon Musk seemed to want to lower the cost of the deal. I didn’t expect him “Face out completely, I thought he was trying to renegotiate. Maybe it’s some form of renegotiation? Anyway, this issue has been simmering for a while and seems to have reached boiling point now.”
Purchase price: $44 billion
Musk announced in April that he wanted to buy Twitter for more than $44 billion. He makes it a condition that the company must make the number of bots and fake accounts public. Some observers saw this as an attempt to lower the price of the takeover. Even then, there was speculation as to whether the takeover would actually take place.
The proposed purchase had dominated business and tech news for weeks. Some observers were downright annoyed by it. CNN business journalist Brian Stelter surmised that Musk enjoys negotiating more than actually running Twitter.
Twitter stock down
After the announcement, the stock initially went down. It was down 5 percent on Friday, and at 36.81 was well below the $54.20 price Musk originally bid for Twitter.
Good or bad for Twitter?
Analyst Julie Biel told CNBC that she thinks this is a better bet for Twitter in the long run:
The Twitter staff had no confidence in Elon’s ability to run such a company when he also runs two companies, Tesla and SpaceX, which are large and complex. It’s not so good in the short term, there won’t be another buyer, we know that. And advertising revenue will suffer. I’m a bit worried about the stock because of this — but it will be good for the company over the long term.
Twitter and Musk have signed an agreement that each side will be fined $1 billion if the deal doesn’t go through. Twitter now apparently wants to hold on to the takeover and plans to go to court. Expensive and long-term court proceedings may now loom.
Elon Musk: No takeover of Twitter
Katharina Wilhelm, ARD Los Angeles, 07/09/2022 07:21 a.m