It’s the social media saga that just keeps on giving. Musk is trying to pull out of his deal to outright buy Twitter.
After emptying Tesla of shares, throwing demands for reports on bots, and making a lot of grand promises, Musk’s second attempt to buy Twitter is now falling through. We’ve been here once before, where buying enough shares to be appointed CEO wasn’t enough for him. So, he shook a lot of hands, stuck his hands between the couch cushions, and somehow came up with the $44 billion USD sum to buy a social media platform.
And it could cost him even more to pull out. It’s possible Twitter could sue him for damages. Twitter might be drowning in debt, hence taking Musk up on his offer in the first place, but you can bet a company that big has a good legal team behind them. Musk pulling out of his deal could gain Twitter a compensatory $1 billion from Elon’s already quite empty pockets.
But wheels are in motion, and contracts are signed. It’s also possible that Musk will be forced to go ahead with the deal, due to waivers in his contract. It’s something a lot of experts are throwing around.
Then again, the middle ground is the most likely scenario: Musk buys the company for a lower price. Do you think one of the world’s richest men, who sells some of the most expensive cars, got there without a few car salesman tactics up his sleeve? Maybe this very public fallout over “bots” is actually a tactic to force Twitter to lower their price. That way, Musk has his cake and eats it too.
If Musk does take control of Twitter, his rather outlandish ideas on how to run it are sure to affect marketers. But, if he backs out, well, marketers can keep going supporting Twitter on its current goal of becoming marketing heaven with new features released almost by the day.
Edit: in the time it took to write this, Twitter has announced that it does intend to sue Elon Musk for backing out.
