The acquisition of Twitter is a ‘bitter pill’ for Elon Musk

Yesterday, October 4, less than two weeks before the trial was scheduled to begin, Musk’s lawyers said the businessman wanted to resume the deal to take over Twitter with an initial bid of $54.2. /share.

In a Twitter post on the same day, Elon Musk said buying the US social network will speed up the process of creating what he calls “X, the super app for everything”.

Before that, Musk and Twitter went from a “promising handshake” about a new era for the social media platform in April to facing off in court this October. Accordingly, the Tesla CEO wants to terminate the $ 44 billion agreement and accuses the US social network of not providing accurate figures on the number of spam and fake accounts.

According to the Financial Times , this move marks Musk’s “surrender” as the legal grounds for him to jump out of the Twitter merger are unlikely to convince the judge.

“Clearly this is a bitter pill for Musk,” said Eric Talley, a professor at Columbia Law School.

Experts familiar with the matter claim that Twitter is still seeking assurances from the court that the Tesla CEO is indeed in good faith buying the social network, and is not just trying to delay the trial.

” I don’t expect Twitter’s lawyers to drop the case until they get something more credible than settlements ,” Talley said.

The intense legal battle is affecting both sides. In less than three months, nearly 700 new pieces of evidence were filed in the Delaware Chancery Court.

Musk initially sought to delay the trial because financial commitments from Wall Street remained in effect until April next year. However, Judge Kathaleen McCormick did not approve because the length of the legal battle had led to low morale among Twitter employees, mass layoffs, and internal business disruption. Meanwhile, Twitter has grown increasingly frustrated over Musk’s failure to publicize the full details of the messages related to the deal, influencing the court’s decision-making.

” I think it’s nearing the end of the lawsuit and Musk’s lawyers haven’t gotten what they wanted ,” said Stefano Bonini, corporate governance expert at the Stevens Institute of Technology.

The judge in Delaware on October 4 asked the two sides to gather to propose how to proceed with the trial. A source said Musk’s legal team realized the trial was not going well as the judge repeatedly sided with Twitter in pre-trial rulings.

Twitter said Musk violated the agreement by not making a good faith effort to close the acquisition. The company’s lawyers point to a text message Musk wrote to a banker from May: ” It doesn’t make sense to buy Twitter if we’re entering a third world war .”

Andrew Jennings, a professor at Brooklyn Law School, said he anticipates Twitter ” might insist on closing a deal ,” such as a regulatory ruling requiring one party to pay the other, or “some other mechanism makes it impossible for the power of the court to close the deal.”

” McCormick will need the same ‘certainty’, ” he added. ” Nobody expects another trial in the next month or two, if Musk decides to change his mind again .”