U-turn in the dispute Twitter: Tech billionaire Elon Musk wants the intelligence service after months of resistance now take over at the agreed price of 44 billion dollars. Musk has been trying to get out of the deal he initiated for months, but Twitter wouldn’t let him go, citing their purchase agreement. The Tesla boss confirmed his yielding on Tuesday in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. In a letter, Musk suggested that the deal be completed at the originally agreed purchase price of $54.20 per share, his attorneys said.
A trial in the dispute between Musk and Twitter is actually scheduled for mid-October. However, after Musk’s change of heart, it is unlikely that this will happen.
However, some uncertainty remains, as Musk continues to keep an escape door open. Musk pointed out to the SEC that his offer was dependent on funding commitments.
Musk is reportedly working on a universal app
After his turnaround, Musk wrote that buying Twitter would accelerate his path to “X, the app for everything”. (“Buying Twitter is an accelerator to creating X, the everything app.”) Musk added that buying Twitter would accelerate his project by three to five years. What exactly is behind his vision for a universal app remained unclear.
Recommended external content
At this point you will find external content from Twitter that complements the article and is recommended by the editors. You can show it and hide it again with one click.
External content
I consent to external content being displayed to me. This allows personal data to be transmitted to third-party platforms. Read more about our privacy policy.
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 jumped a good 22 percent to $52 on Tuesday.
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 Musk’s process documents.
Musk’s lawyers reportedly warned of defeat in court
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.
Many experts assessed Musk’s 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, the hedge fund Greenlight Capital announced its entry into the short message service. The shares were bought at an average price of $37.24, founder David Einhorn (53) wrote in a letter to investors. So the new development could be a good deal for Greenlight Capital.
Twitter’s Ex-Security Chief Zatko Called Twitter “Ticking Bomb”
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, insufficient 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, the ex-security chief of Twitter. 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 hacker times, made serious allegations against the Twitter leadership and described the online platform at a Senate hearing as a “ticking bomb of security vulnerabilities”.
more on the subject
Musk’s takeover comes just in time for Donald Trump’s campaign
Should Musk buy Twitter after all, the ailing company would be owned by the man who has publicly criticized its leadership almost incessantly for the past few months and has spread doubts about 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 the Twitter takeover was not about money, but about strengthening 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.