It appears like Elon Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of Twitter is truly taking place.
Musk has made it plain that he wants the platform to function with fewer limitations on what users can post, and he promised to unban Trump again after he was suspended for tweets that broke platform rules against inciting violence during the uprising on January 6.
So, just before the 2022 midterm elections and the 2024 general election, the former president might find that his Twitter powers have been reinstated. Trump could rouse Washington journalists with a few clicks on a phone, launch an endorsement of a politician who was facing difficulties, or boost the most recent conservative meme.
The billionaire intends to proceed with the contentious deal, his representatives informed Twitter in a statement on Tuesday, confirming prior rumors that things were back on track.
The notice, which was submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission, states, “We write to notify you that the Musk Parties plan to proceed to close of the transaction envisaged by the April 25, 2022 Merger Agreement, on the terms and subject to the conditions set forth therein.”
The Tesla and SpaceX CEO said that Twitter had misled him about the number of bots present on the social network, and the two parties were headed to court over the contract. Musk has asserted that up to 20% of Twitter’s user base consists of “fake/spam accounts” without offering any supporting proof. Less than 5% of Twitter’s “monetizable daily active users,” a subset of its user base supplied as a metric for advertisers, are said to be bots, according to the company’s long-standing claims. It appears that Musk will no longer pursue the matter, though.
In a statement released on its investor relations page, Twitter said: “We received the letter from the Musk parties that they filed with the SEC.” The company also stated that it intended to finalize the transaction at $54.20 per share. Twitter’s stock price shot up more than 12%, to nearly $47 per share, after Musk’s announcement.
Musk plans to proceed with the transaction, according to the letter, “provided that the Delaware Chancery Court enter an immediate stay of the lawsuit, Twitter vs. Musk, et al. and adjourn the trial and all subsequent processes.” In other words, Musk is willing to proceed as long as the legal action is stayed. Though it’s feasible that Musk will throw another spanner in the works given his unpredictable personality.
The trial was scheduled to start on October 17, and while it’s unclear what caused Musk to change his mind, there have been a lot of recent twists and turns. Musk’s texts regarding the agreement, which were unearthed during the discovery process and just made public by the court, show him plainly losing interest in the project as a result of the Ukrainian conflict and the impending worsening of the world economy.
Last night, a new twist emerged when Delaware Chancery Court Judge Kathaleen McCormick granted Twitter’s request to examine texts from Elon Musk’s close friends and family on a puzzling anonymous email that Musk’s attorney Alex Spiro received on May 6. The sender of the email, who only described themselves as a former Twitter executive, requested that Musk’s team follow up on a new platform. The email was delivered via ProtonMail.
Despite the tipper’s anonymity, it is plausible that Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, the former head of security at Twitter, sent the email. Zatko denied having contact with Musk before making his whistleblower complaint public in August. At the end of August, Musk’s team served a subpoena on Zatko, requesting testimony and documents that might support the claim that information about security flaws at the company was reason enough to back out of the agreement.
Musk said in a late-Tuesday tweet that acquiring Twitter would “accelerate” a completely unrelated project called “X, the everything app.” Musk has previously indicated he would establish a social media site named X if the Twitter idea fell through, but his mystery software big plan is likely news to everyone on either side of the agreement. He does still own X.com and a holding company with the same name, but it seems more likely that an app called X will be vaporware or just a joke than something that will actually exist.
Last Updated on November 17, 2022 by Safiya K
