Elon Musk moved to end his $44 billion deal to buy Twitter on Friday, while Twitter vowed to complete the sale.
Summary
Elon Musk moved to end his $44 billion deal to buy Twitter on Friday, while Twitter vowed to sue the world’s richest man to complete the sale.
- Musk blamed Twitter for breaching provisions of their merger agreement, but Twitter denied his claims.
- The Tesla CEO argued Twitter failed “to turn over sufficient data on spam accounts” and had not yet fired some executives and recruiters, among other aspects of the merger deal.
- Musk has complained about Twitter’s spam and bot accounts for months, and evidently, the social media giant could not address his concerns.
- The SpaceX and Tesla CEO first announced plans to buy Twitter in April, promising to make the platform an “inclusive arena for free speech.”
- CNN noted Musk had been expressing concerns for weeks, “without evidence,” that Twitter was hiding the actual number of bot and spam accounts on the platform.
- The Washington Post reported concerns about Twitter’s “data ‘fire hose’ – a trove of data sold to corporate consumers” were the main source of Musk’s trepidation. From this, Musk concluded he lacked proper information to assess Twitter’s business prospects.
- The New York Times wrote completing the Musk deal is “paramount” for the social media giant. Twitter “has struggled for years to grow, and its financial performance has been inconsistent.” No other buyers are interested and it recently had to lay off workers.
- The Wall Street Journal asked, “what happened?” The Journal explained in greater detail why spam accounts are such a big sticking point for Musk, and the expected legal next steps for both Musk and Twitter.
- Fox News interviewed columnist Karol Markowicz, who argued “Elon Musk knows what he’s doing” and said, “The fact that he’s pulling back from this deal right now says that he knows something that can, you know, potentially lead to maybe negotiating a better price.”
- Breitbart chronicled Musk’s difficulties in acquiring what it called the “far-left” social media site, and additional complicating factors including opposition to Musk’s bid from a member of the Saudi royal family on Twitter’s board.
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© Dominic Moore, 2022
