Twitter Execs Say They Won’t Let Musk Weasel Out of Deal
The Tesla CEO has been trying to whip up doubt, with little evidence, about the number of fake accounts on the social media platform.
Joe Skipper/Reuters
Twitter executives say they aren’t playing Elon Musk’s games.
At a company town hall on Thursday, the execs told employees they will not renegotiate the price of his $44 billion takeover agreement—a source familiar with the matter confirmed to The Daily Beast—even as Musk tries to stir up doubt about the number of fake accounts on the platform.
Twitter’s share price is currently hovering around $38 per share, well below the $54.20 per share Musk committed to last month.
The terms of the buyout agreement will make it hard for him to weasel out of the deal. It includes a $1 billion breakup fee, and the company could sue to try to force Musk to follow through on the transaction.
Last week, the Tesla billionaire tweeted that he was putting the buyout on hold until Twitter could prove that spam and fake accounts do not compose more than 5 percent of its users, as the platform has publicly stated. He has suggested that the estimates are dramatically off but has not publicly offered substantive evidence.
Musk later added that he was “still committed” to the acquisition and suggested that he is open to a deal at a lower price.
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Days after Musk’s initial tweet, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal attempted to outline the company’s approach to managing fake accounts through an extensive Twitter thread. Musk responded with a poop emoji.
The shitposting billionaire continued to troll the platform on Thursday afternoon, posting a meme mocking its approach to bots.
Musk has found other reasons to lash out of late. On Wednesday he blasted the ratings behind the S&P 500 ESG Index—which includes companies committed to the environment, social causes, and corporate governance—as an “outrageous scam!” The index had dropped Tesla over concerns about its handling of a federal safety investigation and alleged racial discrimination at one of its plants, among other causes.
Later that day, Musk officially declared that he would vote Republican in upcoming elections after bashing “phony social justice warriors” and the “leftist agenda.”
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