Featured Image Credit: Brett Jordan via Pexels, TED via YouTube
Topics: World News
After all that fuss, here we are. If you cast your mind back to April, tech giant Elon Musk pledged to buy Twitter for $44 billion and it’s been quite the eventful affair. Musk was pretty vocal about his desire to add an edit button, and he also opened up about plans to put the embed and quote-retweet functions behind a paywall for some users.
In May, the buyout was put on hold whilst the percentage of spam accounts on the website was calculated and now, the deal is off the table altogether. Musk has cancelled his attempted takeover deal and Twitter isn't happy. In fact, they’re planning to sue him.
Check out Elon Musk talking about his plans for Twitter right here.
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As reported by Reuters, Musk is backing out of the $44 billion dollar deal, “citing material breach of multiple provisions of the agreement.” As previously mentioned, a count was made as to how many of Twitter’s users were spam bots - a figure seemingly requested by Musk and his team. Musk’s takeover was contingent on this figure, with his lawyers writing that Musk “is clearly entitled to the requested data to enable him to prepare for transitioning Twitter's business to his ownership and to facilitate his transaction financing.”
Twitter doesn't seem to share that opinion. It appears that the social media site has refused to provide Musk with the figures he was after, leading many to assume this is why he may have got cold feet.
Musk may not want to go ahead with the acquisition, but he might have to as Twitter plans to sue Musk in a bid to enforce the deal. Twitter chairman Bret Taylor took to the site to write, “The Twitter Board is committed to closing the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon with Mr. Musk and plans to pursue legal action to enforce the merger agreement. We are confident we will prevail in the Delaware Court of Chancery.”
Whether Twitter succeeds in their attempt or not, this court case is certainly going to garner lots of attention. I guess the lesson here is, be careful what you wish for. A $44 billion dollar spend on something you don’t want? Oof.