In a turn of events, it looks like he won’t do it. He won’t do the thing he said he was going to do.
What happens when an “ideological enigma” buys a leading digital space with fixations on taking the seminal social media platform private? Chaos that ultimately thwarts the acquisition altogether. For on Friday, July 8, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced he would be terminating his Twitter bid. As The Messenger reported back in April, a showroom showdown of reportedly Succession-esque theatrics played out until the last down, where Musk came out supreme.
However, this past week, revelations of the world’s richest man fathering twin children out of wedlock with Shivon Zilis, a top executive at his brain-computer interface tech company, Neuralink, have further sullied his constantly ping-ponging image. Coincidental or not, between self-deprecating “underpopulation correction” trolls days later, Musk wants out – lest the site itself has anything to say about it.
That, they very much do.
Musk’s sudden vow to squash his $44 billion mega agreement inspired Twitter to “lawyer up.” Per a letter penned by their legal team, Twitter is taking the eccentric innovator to court with “he said’s / she said’s” over data withholdings, and for overall behavior from the latter the company deems “invalid and wrong.”
Twitter’s endgame: for the notoriously impulsive [at least when out of the lab and neck deep in social media exchange] Musk to show some stick-to-itiveness by ponying up the dough as initially promised. According to CNN, analysts suggest Musk is attempting to run an escape act simply because the “deal now seems overpriced following the downturn in Twitter shares and the overall tech market.”
Though he carries himself with the aim to polarize while captaining a rocket called his still unfolding legend, a survey of 2,000 Americans conducted by Preply.com actually found that 2 in 3 people did not want Musk to take control of Twitter. But this does not account for John Q. Citizen and the Citizen Kane-compared flip-floppers – Musk now notwithstanding – of the free world.
“He said the other day, ‘Oh, I’ve never voted for a Republican,’” Former President Donald J. Trump said at a Saturday, July 10 rally in Anchorage, Alaska. “I said, ‘I didn’t know that. He told me he voted for me, so he’s another bullsh– artist,” he added.
Of course, via Twitter, Musk replied – laying a final coat of pavement on his path back to the political middle shortly after his publicly-disclosed vote for Senator Mayra Flores (R-Texas) in a special election that flipped a traditionally Democrat seat. “I don’t hate the man,” writes Musk, “but it’s time for Trump to hang up his hat & sail into the sunset.”
He added, “Dems should also call off the attack – don’t make it so that Trump’s only way to survive is to regain the Presidency.” These are charged statements from a once proudly apolitical multi-billionaire who flaunts a board-flipping bullwhip and infinite corporate grit on the occasions he’s not bitten by the boredom bug.
Twitter is trading 34% percent below its price the day Twitter and Musk first struck a deal, and 37% below Musk’s offer price, per CNN. Does he have cold feet, or something red piping hot and characteristically outside the box up his Met Gala-ready sleeves? It remains to be seen. But this won’t hinder any economically invested party’s ability to ponder the ramifications.
“I believe Elon’s endgame was to attempt to clean up the social media platform,” said John Buonomo, of Rocky Point, an Executive Director at a Financial Services firm. “Free speech has been tainted, while we are free to express our views, too many social media platforms, Twitter included, chose a path of censorship so only one side of the argument can be presented or debunked. I would have liked to see him buy Twitter, and remove the biased censorship. It’s unfortunate that Twitter could not be honest with the number of fake “bot” accounts used on the platform.”
Let the next round of games begin, and let the chips fall where they may. We at The Messenger predicted Musk would be relentless in his quest for the last laugh, and, as of today, neither side has flinched yet.
