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 worldâs 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 âto turn over sufficient data on spam accountsâ 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, âwithout evidence,â that Twitter was hiding the actual number of bot and spam accounts on the platform.
- The Washington Post reported concerns about Twitterâs âdata âfire hoseâ â a trove of data sold to corporate consumersâ were the main source of Muskâs trepidation. From this, Musk concluded he lacked proper information to assess Twitterâs business prospects.
- The New York Times wrote completing the Musk deal is âparamountâ for the social media giant. Twitter âhas struggled for years to grow, and its financial performance has been inconsistent.â No other buyers are interested and it recently had to lay off workers.
- The Wall Street Journal asked, âwhat happened?â 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 âElon Musk knows what heâs doingâ and said, âThe fact that heâs pulling back from this deal right now says that he knows something that can, you know, potentially lead to maybe negotiating a better price.â
- Breitbart chronicled Muskâs difficulties in acquiring what it called the âfar-leftâ social media site, and additional complicating factors including opposition to Muskâs bid from a member of the Saudi royal family on Twitterâs board.
© Dominic Moore, 2022