Elon Musk buys Twitter: how “the craziest deal in the history of Silicon Valley” was forged and what can change in the social network

It was a cool afternoon in late March in San Jose, California.

A meeting had been hastily arranged at an Airbnb to welcome the richest person in the world.

The meeting was very important to Twitter. Elon Musk had recently become the company’s largest shareholder. Now there was talk that he wanted to join his board of directors.

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When Twitter president Bret Taylor got there what he found It wasn’t exactly what I was expecting.

This “place wins for being the weirdest place I’ve had a meeting in recently,” he wrote in a text message to Musk, as was subsequently published.

“I think they were looking for an Airbnb near the airport and there are tractors and donkeys,” he told her.

However, the meeting went wonderfully.

A few days later it was announced that Musk would join Twitter’s board of directors.

That was just the beginning. The next six months would see one of the craziest transactions in Silicon Valley history.

In early April, Musk seemed content with his position on Twitter’s board of directors and he regularly tweeted about how the company could change.

SEE ALSO: Why did Elon Musk buy Twitter?: “I do it to try to help humanity”

However, private meetings between him and Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal had not gone well. The two disagreed on how to fix the platform. Musk was frustrated.

He is said to have texted Taylor saying, “Fixing Twitter by chatting with Parag won’t work. Drastic action needed.”

Musk fired Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal.

“Take it or leave”

On April 14, the billionaire publicly declared that he wanted to buy Twitter, all inclusive.

offered $44 billion for Twitter on a take it or leave it offer.

The company’s board initially rejected the offer. But then there was another change of heart (not the first in this story).

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Twitter’s board decided that, after second thoughts, they would accept the deal and on April 25 announced that they had accepted the offer.

“Yesss,” Musk tweeted.

Musk argued that Twitter had lost its way. He said Twitter had too often restricted freedom of expression and, as the world’s “public square,” needed place freedom of expression above all else.

The weeks and months after the deal saw tech stocks plunge and Twitter’s value also declined. Soon many analysts began to question whether Musk had overpaid for Twitter.

Publicly, the businessman began to pose a different question: how many real accounts were there on Twitter?

The billionaire, ranked by Forbes and Bloomberg as the world’s richest person with a net worth of around $250 billion, had complained for years about the number of bots on the platform.

SEE ALSO: Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter would leave banks $13 billion in debt

After his offer was accepted, he repeatedly asked Twitter to provide data. about how many real users it had.

Twitter executives shared their figure that less than 5% of daily active users, based on estimates from randomly selected accounts, were bots. This seemed to infuriate Musk.

After a lengthy Twitter thread from Agrawal, explaining how the company had reached that figure, Musk responded with a poop emoji.

Musk’s response

Withdrawal of the offer

The deal was falling apart. Not entirely unexpected, on July 8, Musk announced that he wanted to withdraw from the agreement.

Was he trying to get a better price for the company or was he really walking away? It was hard to tell.

Twitter did not accept it. He argued that Musk’s agreement to buy the company was legally binding and that undoing the deal was not an option.

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With very expensive lawyers on both sides, a court date in Delaware was set for October 17 to decide whether Musk would be forced to buy the company.

In court documents, Twitter argued that it had given Musk extensive information about how many real users it had.

Musk argued that Twitter might have many more bots than it had publicly claimed, and even accused the company of fraud.

Public criticism was hurting Twitter. The process was also getting immensely annoying at the social network’s headquarters.

Some employees loved the idea of ​​Musk becoming their CEO.

Many others, in private, and some in public, said that their purchase would be a disaster for content moderation and the broader objectives of the company.

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So when Musk, Twitter, the judge, and journalists were preparing for what seemed like an inevitable court case, another remarkable twist occurred.

Out of the blue, after making all sorts of accusations against Twitter, Musk suddenly announced that the deal was back on.

“Buying Twitter is an accelerator to create X, the app for everything,” he said.

Buying Twitter is an accelerating to creating X, the everything app

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 4, 2022

What made you change your mind? Perhaps he thought he would lose his case in court.

A few days before he announced his change in position, Musk was due to testify before Twitter’s lawyers.

Perhaps he wanted to avoid what would have been an exhausting and probably revealing cross-examination.

Whatever the reason, you can see why twitter doesn’t pop the champagne The company has remained silent.

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Taylor tweeted that the company was “committed to closing the transaction at the price and terms agreed to with Musk.”

Twitter also called for the court case to be postponed, not cancelled. Musk’s lawyers countered that Twitter “will not take yes for an answer.”

Musk had until 5:00 p.m. (California time) on October 28 to raise the money.

His rich friends and the banks They will contribute billions. The rest will come from Musk, selling some of his shares in Tesla.

It seems that a deal that was sometimes seen as inextricable and terribly broken has finally been struck.

Twitter

What will Twitter look like under Elon Musk?

Analysis by Zoe Kleinman, Technology Editor, BBC

In an unusually humble message posted on Twitter on Thursday, Musk addressed potential advertisers. In it, he talked about buying Twitter because he wanted to “try to help humanity” and for “civilization to have a digital public square.” He also accepted that his mission may fail.

The fact that it has written specifically to those who advertise on Twitter suggests that, at least for now, it intends to stick with its digital advertising business model.

SEE ALSO: Elon Musk issues catastrophic warning about war between Russia and Ukraine

In the past he has spoken pompously of want to lighten moderation, so that more voices can be heard more freely.

Could he decide to bring back some of the more controversial tweeters banned under the previous leadership, like former US President Donald Trump, or more recently his friend Kanye West?

I’m not so sure. Musk now presents a more restrained view, saying the platform must remain “welcoming,” must comply with national laws, and must not become in “a hellish pitched battle”.

Musk has been furious at the amount of spam and bot accounts he thinks litter the site. He could order a massive cleanup, although that would likely affect the number of followers of all users, which could be an unpopular first step.

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Perhaps his most intriguing clue so far is that his new company is the beginning of “X, the app for everything.” He has not elaborated on this, but many have suggested that he is referring to the creation of a kind of “super app” similar to China’s WeChat, a one-stop shop for social media, messaging, finance, food ordering… In short, a manager of daily life.

What we do know about Musk is that he is visionary, volatile, ambitious and creative. We can guarantee there will be changes, and some Twitter fans are already saying that the leadership change will drive them away.

“We wanted flying cars but they gave us 140 characters,” investor Peter Thiel said long before the “expectations versus reality” meme became a trend. With Musk, we may well get both.

Source: Elcomercio