Elon Musk Moves to End $44 Billion Deal to Buy Twitter

[Magnus]

Less than three months ago, Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, struck a blockbuster $44 billion deal to buy Twitter. He proclaimed that the company had “tremendous potential.”

Friday, Mr. Musk tried to back out of the acquisition altogether.

In a regulatory filing prepared by his lawyers, Mr. Musk said he was terminating the Twitter deal because of a continuing disagreement over the number of spam accounts on the platform. He claimed that Twitter had not provided information necessary to calculate the number of those accounts — which the company has said is lower than 5 percent — and that it had appeared to make inaccurate statements.

Elon Musk Moves to End $44 Billion Deal to Buy Twitter (Published 2022)

In a regulatory filing on Friday, Mr. Musk said Twitter was in “material breach” of the acquisition agreement.

www.nytimes.com

 

[Magnus]

Twitter says it will take Elon Musk to court over cancelled purchase of the company

 

[Billy_Bob]

Let me see....

The company overstated actual accounts.

The company understated BOT or false accounts

This inflated the price of the company.

He was being taken advantage of by misrepresentation of facts, worth, and outright lies. This is called breach of contract and deception to defraud. I'd say twitter is Fucked. Just like the Jan 6 committee, it's the lying and manufacturing of shit that brought them down.

 

[Billy_Bob]

Twitter says it will take Elon Musk to court over cancelled purchase of the company

This is not going to end well for them. To be proven frauds in open court will kill the company. You can bet money that Musk is going to show the numbers.

 

[Magnus]

Let me see....

The company overstated actual accounts.

The company understated BOT or false accounts

This inflated the price of the company.

He was being taken advantage of by misrepresentation of facts, worth, and outright lies. This is called breach of contract and deception to defraud. I'd say twitter is Fucked. Just like the Jan 6 committee, it's the lying and manufacturing of shit that brought them down.

Sorry, nope. Suing Twitter for getting lots of spam accounts? That is like suing a newspaper company because it gets a lot of junk letters.

Besides... Twitter, which has said roughly 5 percent of its accounts are spam since it went public in 2013, has also said the number is an estimate.

The billionaire signed a legally binding agreement in April to buy the company for $54.20 a share, waiving due diligence to get the deal done quickly.

Looks like Musk got enamored of the platform and made a decision on a whim. He is going to regret it to the tune of a $1B dollars in fine.

 

[1srelluc]

Twitter needs to explain why 5% of their accounts are bot accounts.....I guess they never heard tell of discovery in legal proceedings.

 

[Billy_Bob]

Sorry, nope. Suing Twitter for getting lots of spam accounts? That is like suing a newspaper company because it gets a lot of junk letters.

Besides... Twitter, which has said roughly 5 percent of its accounts are spam since it went public in 2013, has also said the number is an estimate.

The billionaire signed a legally binding agreement in April to buy the company for $54.20 a share, waiving due diligence to get the deal done quickly.

Looks like Musk got enamored of the platform and made a decision on a whim. He is going to regret it to the tune of a $1B dollars in fine.

In a word..... NO!

Any company that does this is committing fraud. They have the ability to identify spam or bot accounts. The fact they did not report them in good faith and with accurate numbers, having the ability to do so, implies intent to defraud. You can have all the fake accounts you want; you just can't sell them as persons, and you can't misrepresent them as being persons. That is what twitter did.

 

[Billy_Bob]

Twitter needs to explain why 5% of their accounts are bot accounts.....I guess they never heard tell of discovery in legal proceedings.

Musk did the data search and found BOT accounts to be 20% (+/- 1%) of twitters user accounts. This is a massive misstatement of worth. It's even defrauding those who advertise on the site as they get charged for the distribution numbers. This is much bigger than Musk's offer. This goes to criminal acts to defraud those who advertise on the site.

 

[1srelluc]

Musk did the data search and found BOT accounts to be 20% (+/- 1%) of twitters user accounts. This is a massive misstatement of worth. It's even defrauding those who advertise on the site as they get charged for the distribution numbers. This is much bigger than Musk's offer. This goes to criminal acts to defraud those who advertise on the site.

Not to mention the shareholders.

 

[Magnus]

In a word..... NO!

Any company that does this is committing fraud. They have the ability to identify spam or bot accounts. The fact they did not report them in good faith and with accurate numbers, having the ability to do so, implies intent to defraud. You can have all the fake accounts you want; you just can't sell them as persons, and you can't misrepresent them as being persons. That is what twitter did.

LOL. Fraud is when a company shows one set of accounting records and then does a switch-a-roo when the sale is being finalized. This isn't it.

Twitter and its spam records have long been something that Musk has gripped about. This isn't something he just discovered.

More important, nothing has changed about the bot problem since Musk signed the merger agreement. Twitter has published the same qualified estimate — that fewer than 5% of monetizable accounts are fake — for the last eight years. Musk knew those estimates, and declined to do any nonpublic due diligence before signing the merger agreement. He knew about the spam bot problem before signing the merger agreement, as we know because he talked about it constantly, including while announcing the merger agreement. If he didn’t want to buy Twitter because there are spam bots, he should not have signed a contract to buy Twitter. No new information has come to light about spam bots in the last three weeks.

Elon Musk Does Not Care About Spam Bots

Also the merger proxy and Allianz Structured Alpha.

www.bloomberg.com

Musk has long been vocal (years before putting in a bid) about Twitter's spam accounts and yet, he declines to do due diligence before signing the merger?

Sorry but this isn't going to stand up in court. He is on the hook for at least $1B. Which, of course, maybe pocket change for him but however he spins this, he is still the loser in the deal.

 

[tahuyaman]

If Twitter is misrepresenting the number of spam accounts, that could be viewed a securities violation and a crime as it impacts it’s stock price and overall net worth.

 

[tahuyaman]

If a condition of the sale was that Twitter was required to prove less than five percent of their subscriptions are spam accounts, why are they refusing to comply?

 

[Magnus]

If Twitter is misrepresenting the number of spam accounts, that could be viewed a securities violation and a crime as it impacts it’s stock price and overall net worth.

They are not. They have always maintained that the number is an estimate. It is up to the buyer to do due diligence. Musk chose not to.

 

[Magnus]

If a condition of the sale was that Twitter was required to prove less than five percent of their subscriptions are spam accounts, why are they refusing to comply?

<sigh> They are not refusing at all. They complied with every request from Musk. He can protest as much as he wants but if he does walk away he will have to pay a hefty fine.

 

[Magnus]

Former President Donald Trump says Elon Musk is "not going to buy Twitter and he’s a bullshit artist."


And Rump would know. From one bullshit artist to another...

 

[tahuyaman]

<sigh> They are not refusing at all. They complied with every request from Musk. He can protest as much as he wants but if he does walk away he will have to pay a hefty fine.

According to Musk they have not fulfilled the requirement to prove their spam account rate is less than 5%.

 

[tahuyaman]

And Rump would know. From one bullshit artist to another...

Who's "Rump?"

 

[tahuyaman]

They are not. They have always maintained that the number is an estimate. It is up to the buyer to do due diligence. Musk chose not to.

As a condition of the sale, Twitter was required to show proof that their spam account rate is less than 5%. If they didn't do that and according to Musk they haven't, he can back out of the deal.

 

[Magnus]

According to Musk they have not fulfilled the requirement to prove their spam account rate is less than 5%.

Of course he is going to say that. What else is he going to say?

That he has buyer remorse or that he does not have enough funds?

 

[Magnus]

As a condition of the sale, Twitter was required to show proof that their spam account rate is less than 5%. If they didn't do that and according to Musk they haven't, he can back out of the deal.

Nope. Not true. But hey, prove it