> the reason that elon musk can't get out of the deal over the bots thing is not that he "waived due diligence." it's that he SIGNED A BINDING AGREEMENT TO BUY TWITTER, and that agreement does not have any outs for "i think there are too many bots."
So, best guess, what happened here. Manic episode? so he waved due diligence and all sorts of other things? Figured he was a billionaire so didn't care? Wanted to fuck twitter over for not giving him more power in his board seat? Jack was mad at the board so worked with Elon to fuck them over? Or do we take everything at face value and he's really bothered by bots. (Which, I think there's too much conflicting data to take things at face value and thus the question). Or he's still planning on buying and this is more negotiating.
IMO he's just trying to get out of the deal. The offer was poorly timed and the price of tech has gone much lower than when the offer was made. He'll probably just pay the $1 billion to get out of the deal. This article seems a like half-baked shot from the Musk side to renegotiate.
The $1b isn't a fee for backing out. There is no backing out, the deal is signed, it's a binding contract.
Musk not only waived due diligence, he also agreed he cannot dispute a "Specific Performance" argument from Twitter forcing him to complete the purchase against his will.
The $1b fee was in the case that a 3rd party, like the SEC, killed the deal and it was one of the parties fault it happened.
Yep, he didn’t waive due diligence he signed a contract to buy the company, impulsively and as a terrible business decision. Tech stocks crashed and now he’s holding the bag and lost funding to do the deal. While Musk’s net worth is high, he’s relatively illiquid, and 50 billion is a lot of money. Look what happened to Tesla stock when he started selling at the end of last year.
It’s unclear why Musk bought Twitter, but given his history of getting into petty spats that a CEO should be above, it seems very unlikely that it was altruistic. I wouldn’t be surprised if the only reason for buying it was to shutdown the criticism he’s been frequently the target of the platform.
Add to it his political fights, recent news that he’s fathered 9 children with 3 women, one of whom is his subordinate, fights with regulators, and news that he may have requested an erotic massage from another employee, and Musk’s behavior looks less and less befitting of a CEO, no matter how well the stock has done under his leadership.
Accountability has a cost, and it’ll be a sight to be seen if a Delaware chancery court is what applies some accountability to someone deeply unfamiliar with it.
Is there a possibility here that Elon Musk may not actually, realistically be able to afford the deal? The Tesla shares he has not already leveraged are imploding in value, and there are some severe legal implications of him trying to firesale the ownership portions he has left.
Like what happens if the banks who signed onto this mess decide to pull their funding for the deal?
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[ 0.25 ms ] story [ 50.1 ms ] threadhttps://twitter.com/matt_levine/status/1545152302142689281
Musk not only waived due diligence, he also agreed he cannot dispute a "Specific Performance" argument from Twitter forcing him to complete the purchase against his will.
The $1b fee was in the case that a 3rd party, like the SEC, killed the deal and it was one of the parties fault it happened.
It’s unclear why Musk bought Twitter, but given his history of getting into petty spats that a CEO should be above, it seems very unlikely that it was altruistic. I wouldn’t be surprised if the only reason for buying it was to shutdown the criticism he’s been frequently the target of the platform.
Add to it his political fights, recent news that he’s fathered 9 children with 3 women, one of whom is his subordinate, fights with regulators, and news that he may have requested an erotic massage from another employee, and Musk’s behavior looks less and less befitting of a CEO, no matter how well the stock has done under his leadership.
Like what happens if the banks who signed onto this mess decide to pull their funding for the deal?