Elon Musk looks to be going through with buying Twitter, meaning the self-professed Twitter addict will be the owner of the entire platform.
Musk had joked about buying Twitter for a while, before becoming a member of the board after becoming the company’s majority shareholder, as reported by Sky News in April 2022.
This led onto Musk deciding to buy the platform outright, selling millions of Tesla shares in May 2022 to finance the deal. Musk had been unhappy with the number of bot accounts identified on Twitter, leading him to halt the deal temporarily.
However, Twitter sued the tech mogul for “a show of bad faith”, as reported by the Guardian in June 2022. Musk counter-sued, with a decision being made on October 28th as to whether Musk will purchase the platform or be taken to trial to force him into buying it.
Elon Musk is one of the richest people in the world and an owner of multiple successful businesses. He first came to prominence by owning PayPal, before selling it in 2002 to eBay. Since then, he has owned SpaceX, Tesla, and the Boring Company, amongst others.
Elon wanted to “quintiple the annual revenue of Twitter”, a key factor in his initial decision to purchase the platform.
Musk also believes that more accounts on the platform are bots than what Twitter admits to, something that has been disputed after his team, The Musk Parties, analysed the number of fake accounts.
Musk went on record saying that “33 % of Twitter users are bots”, but his own data firm investigations pulled a figure of only 5-11 % of Twitter accounts being bots.
While the billionaire may have attempted to pull out of the deal, Twitter’s lawsuit of him has forced his hand.
Twitter’s Lawsuit of Elon Musk Goes Ahead On 28th October
As reported by CNBC, Musk has until the 28th October to purchase Twitter, lest he be taken to trial and potentially forced into the acquisition.
In the coming weeks, you will know for sure whether he has purchased Twitter, ending a six-month saga that originated from a joke.
As Musk and Twitter had sued each other, it had to be decided in the Delaware Chancey Court as to how to proceed forward. A judge for the court ruled that a decision must be reached by the 28th October, 2022, or it’ll be taken to trial.
Musk had hoped to finance the deal through loans from the Bank of America and Morgan Stanley, for a sum amassing $12.5 billion. However, this is no longer to be the case due to uncertainty from the banks of Twitter’s profitability, leading to Musk needing to finance the move largely himself, hence the extra time granted from the Delaware judge.
The Musk-Twitter saga seems to be coming to an end soon. What will this mean for the platform?