Donald Trump has written: “THE TWITTER DEAL IS DEAD, LONG LIVE THE “TRUTH”,” gleefully celebrating Elon Musk’s decision to abandon his attempt to acquire Twitter.
On his own competing social network Truth Social, the former president posted his opinions on Friday evening, just after it was revealed that Musk, 51, had withdrawn a $44 billion offer.
Trump’s post on Truth, where he has 3.5 million followers, received close to 37,000 likes and more than 9,000 shares.
After being suspended by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey in January 2020, only days after the Capitol riots, he created the Twitter clone.
Compared to Twitter’s 300 million users, Truth Social has an estimated two million active users.
On Friday Musk, who is the world’s richest man, announced he was ending his bid to buy Twitter at $54.20-a-share, prompting a furious response from the firm’s bosses, who say they’ll sue to force through the deal.
Musk accused Twitter bosses of refusing to hand over details about the number of fake users on its site, in a letter announcing that he was reneging on the deal.
The billionaire blasted the social media giant for refusing to ‘comply with its contractual obligations’ throughout the acquisition process.
Additionally, he asserted that the company’s hiring freeze and senior employee firings during the previous two months prevented it from doing business as usual.
Following Musk’s decision to withdraw from the agreement, Twitter shares ended at $36.81 on Friday, leading to rumors that Musk is still attempting to buy the company, but at a far lesser price than he had originally proposed.
On Saturday in Sun Valley, Utah, at the so-called Billionaires’ Summer Camp, Musk is scheduled to give a speech.
Although it is yet unknown if the two have already met, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal is also present at the tycoons’ meeting.
Musk’s lawyer at Skadden Arps, Mike Ringler, claimed that Twitter was in serious breach of a number of the terms of the agreement in a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission informing them of Musk’s decision to withdraw his offer for the company.
“Mr. Musk is terminating the Merger Agreement because Twitter is materially in breach of numerous provisions of that Agreement, appears to have made false and misleading representations on which Mr. Musk relied when entering into the Merger Agreement, and is likely to experience a Company Material Adverse Effect,” wrote Ringler.
‘While Section 6.4 of the Merger Agreement requires Twitter to provide Mr. Musk and his advisors all data and information that Mr. Musk requests ‘for any reasonable business purpose related to the consummation of the transaction,’ Twitter has not complied with its contractual obligations.
‘For nearly two months, Mr. Musk has sought the data and information necessary to ‘make an independent assessment of the prevalence of fake or spam accounts on Twitter’s platform’.
‘This information is fundamental to Twitter’s business and financial performance and is necessary to consummate the transactions contemplated by the Merger Agreement because it is needed to ensure Twitter’s satisfaction of the conditions to closing, to facilitate Mr Musk’s financing and financial planning for the transaction, and to engage in transition planning for the business.
‘Twitter has failed or refused to provide this information. Sometimes Twitter has ignored Mr Musk’s requests, sometimes it has rejected them for reasons that appear to be unjustified, and sometimes it has claimed to comply while giving Mr Musk incomplete or unusable information.’
Musk had previously threatened to cancel the agreement unless the company could demonstrate that less than 5% of members on the social media platform were made up of spam and bot accounts.
However, Twitter vowed to sue right away and expressed confidence that it would prevail.
“The Twitter Board is dedicated to finalizing the acquisition on the price and conditions agreed upon with Mr. Musk and plans to pursue legal action to enforce the merger agreement,” Taylor wrote in a tweet.
‘We are confident we will prevail in the Delaware Court of Chancery.’ That message was later retweeted by CEO Agrawal.
Given that this is an active legal case, you should abstain from Tweeting, Slacking, or providing any opinion concerning the Merger Agreement, according to an internal message from Twitter’s general counsel.
An unidentified Twitter employee told NBC News that Musk had “f**king wrecked the company” in response to the failed transaction.
The worker remarked, “I suppose it seems like we won.
However, it has the sense of the film’s climax, when Michael Bay’s explosion is behind the characters and they are covered in blood. Although we could see this coming, he has already completely wrecked the firm.
Twitter is renowned for having a woken staff that has previously come under fire for engaging in censorship in an effort to silence content they believe to be “damaging.”
Musk said he planned to take a far more laid-back approach to moderation.
He wanted to impose temporary suspensions on users, rather than outright, lifetime bans for bad behavior – such as the one imposed on Donald Trump over his alleged stoking of the January 6 riots.
Musk is an avid user of the site, and says he wanted to buy it to shape it into a powerful force for free speech.
During an all-hands meeting with employees in April, Agrawal attempted to quell employee anger after workers demanded answers to how managers planned to handle an anticipated mass exodus prompted by Musk.
Agrawal stood to make $42 million if the Musk deal went ahead.
Due to Musk’s decision, the 16-year-old San Francisco-based business and the billionaire are expected to engage in a long court battle.
Instead of a judge directing a transaction to be completed, contested mergers and acquisitions that are brought before Delaware courts typically result in the corporations renegotiating agreements or the acquirer paying the target a settlement to withdraw.
This is due to the fact that the target firms are frequently eager to end the uncertainty around their future and move forward.
According to a person familiar with the situation, Twitter, however, is hopeful that court procedures will begin in a few weeks and conclude in a few months.
The drama could be resolved by Twitter agreeing to sell itself to Musk for a lower amount, or by Musk agreeing to pay a settlement to the firm for backing out of the deal.