Elon Musk is officially buying Twitter… again! The SpaceX founder has agreed to uphold his originally deal with the social media platform to buy it for $44 billion (or $54.20 per share). According to a letter sent by his attorneys, the billionaire is agreeing to the stipulations of the original deal.
“Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app,” Elon tweeted on Tuesday, following the announcement.
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Elon initially announced his plans to buy Twitter in April, saying he hopes to make the platform “politically neutral” – he even said he’d reinstate former U.S. President Donald Trump’s account.
“I want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans,” he said at the time.
However, in July, the Tesla founder pulled out of the deal, claiming that Twitter was “misleading” him with inaccurate information about spam accounts and was in “breach” of their contract.
While Twitter apparently told Elon spam accounts make up 5% or less of the platform’s users, the billionaire says the number is higher and Twitter has deceived him. “Twitter is in material breach of multiple provisions […] [and] appears to have made false and misleading representations,” his filing said.
A post shared by elonmusk (@elonmusk)
But there may be good reason Elon is now re-committing to the original deal – Twitter sued him in responded to backing out.
The social media platform’s initial contract included a “$1 billion break-up fee,” giving Twitter the leeway to sue Elon should he pull out of their deal unfairly.
Twitter launched a lawsuit against Elon shortly after he announced he was refuting the deal. They argued he was backing out because a drop in the stock market significantly reduced his wealth, not because they provided misleading data.
A post shared by elonmusk (@elonmusk)
The case was only weeks away from going to trial, but now it appears it won’t given Elon’s decision to buy the platform again.
Since Elon’s surprise announcement, Twitter’s shares have increased by 20%. Still, though, the value is lower than the takeover price, largely because investors are skeptical Elon will follow through with the deal given his track record. It’s been rumored that Elon’s offer may not be genuine, but it rather a delay tactic in light of the looming case.
TheRichest will keep you updated as this story progresses.
Sources: BBC, JumpStart,
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