Surprisingly, he agreed to pay the price of $54.20 per share he originally offered. Musk has actually been trying for months to get out of the deal he initiated himself. But Twitter did not want to let him go, referring to the binding purchase agreement. A trial in the dispute is actually scheduled for mid-October. Whether that will happen is unclear after Musk’s sudden change of heart.
The Tesla boss confirmed his yielding in a mandatory announcement to the US Securities and Exchange Commission. This marks the start of a spectacular turnaround in the takeover conflict. However, some uncertainty remains – Musk pointed out to the SEC that his offer is dependent on funding commitments. This leaves a small back door open. If loans and investments from other financiers with whom he wants to realize the mega deal should burst, there could still be a way out for him. “It’s not decided yet,” warned the investment house MKM Partners on Wednesday. There is no guarantee that Musk will close the deal.
After his turnaround, the star entrepreneur himself only wrote that the purchase of Twitter would speed up his path to “X, the app for everything”. And by three to five years, he added in a tweet. What exactly is behind his vision for a universal app remained unclear. In a brief statement, Twitter confirmed that it had received the letter with Musk’s renewed offer. The company intends to complete the transaction as planned.
Twitter shares rose 22 percent to $52 on Tuesday but fell again on Wednesday. Ultimately, the Twitter papers on the NYSE lost 1.31 percent to $ 51.32. According to the “New York Times”, the company does not really trust Musk and is considering having the completion of the takeover monitored by a judge.
Musk actually voided the April purchase agreement in July because Twitter allegedly misrepresented the number of fake accounts on its platform. However, the company insisted on compliance with the purchase agreement and went to court. In the past few days, some embarrassing chat conversations with potential investors, among others, have become public as part of the process documents for Musk. At the court hearing, which is supposed to begin in Delaware in about two weeks, he could face further embarrassment.
Musk’s legal team got the impression that the case was developing against him and that the judge had already sided with Twitter after the first hearings to prepare for the trial, the financial service Bloomberg reported on Tuesday, citing an insider. To get out of the multi-billion dollar deal, Musk would have had to prove the company had serious breaches of contract.
The exact reasons for Musk’s rethinking remained unclear for the time being. Many experts assessed his chances in the court case as unfavorable from the start. For months, Musk tried to portray allegedly false information from Twitter about the number of spam and fake accounts as a breach of the takeover agreements. But whether that would be enough in court is doubtful.
In August, Musk came up with new arguments in an attempt to call off the multi-billion dollar takeover of Twitter. The Tesla boss brought up allegations by a whistleblower who accused Twitter of, among other things, a lack of protection of user data and other security weaknesses. Because of these “outrageous” flaws, Musk’s purchase offer for Twitter was to be classified as invalid, his lawyers wrote to the company at the time.
The whistleblower is Peiter Zatko, Twitter’s ex-security chief. He was fired in January and later filed a complaint with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The IT expert, who is also known by his pseudonym “Mudge” from earlier times as a hacker, made serious allegations against the Twitter leadership and described the online platform at a Senate hearing as a “ticking bomb of security vulnerabilities”.
If Musk were to buy Twitter, the ailing company would be owned by the man who has publicly criticized its leadership almost incessantly for the past few months and has cast doubt on the value of the company. However, Musk’s plan is to take Twitter out of the stock market and set up a new management anyway. If the richest person in the world were to pull the strings on the online platform, it would also be politically explosive. It is exciting, for example, whether Twitter the former US President donald trump then resumes.
Musk emphasized from the start that he was not interested in the Twitter takeover for money, but rather to strengthen freedom of speech on the platform. In an interview in May, Musk described Trump’s ban from Twitter in the course of his expressions of sympathy for supporters who stormed the Capitol in Washington on January 6, 2021 as “morally wrong and just plain stupid”. A return could come just in time for Trump with a view to a possible candidacy in the 2024 presidential election.
UN after Musk’s Twitter turn: Users must be safe from hate speech
According to the tech billionaire’s letter of intent Elon Musk to buy Twitter, the United Nations has emphasized the need to fight hate speech. “It is very important for social media companies to ensure they have policies in place that avoid the promotion of violence or hatred,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said on Wednesday. This protects users. UN Secretary-General António Guterres has no particular insight into Musk’s plans with Twitter.
Musk, the richest person in the world, had previously announced that he wanted to buy Twitter for around $44 billion after months of tugging. He wants to take Twitter out of the stock market and set up a new management. The takeover is also politically explosive because Musk could decide, among other things, whether Twitter will reinstate former US President Donald Trump.
In an interview in May, Musk described Trump’s ban from Twitter in the course of his expressions of sympathy for supporters who stormed the Capitol in Washington on January 6, 2021 as “morally wrong and just plain stupid”. A return could come just in time for Trump with a view to a possible candidacy in the 2024 presidential election.
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