Donald Trump has gloated about Elon Musk ending his efforts to buy Twitter, writing: ‘THE TWITTER DEAL IS DEAD, LONG LIVE THE “TRUTH”.’
The former president shared his thoughts on his own rival social network Truth Social Friday evening, shortly after it emerged that Musk, 51, had withdrawn a $44 billion bid.
Trump’s post was liked close to 37,000 times, and shared more than 9,000 times on Truth, where Trump has 3.5 million followers.
He set up the Twitter look-a-like after being banned by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey in January 2020, days after the Capitol riots.
Truth Social boasts an estimated two million active users, compared to the 300 million who’ve signed up to Twitter.
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.
Donald Trump gloated about Elon Musk withdrawing his bid to buy Twitter on his rival social media network Truth Social Friday
Musk, pictured at the Met Gala in May, announced he was terminating his bid to buy Twitter on Friday after claiming Twitter is in breach of an agreement they’d reached
He also claimed the company had failed to operate normally over the past two months as it froze its hiring process and fired senior staff.
Twitter shares closed at $36.81 on Friday after Musk moved to back out of the deal, sparking speculation the Tesla owner is still trying to acquire the firm – but for a far lower price than he previously offered.
Musk is expected to speak at the so-called Billionaires’ Summer Camp at Sun Valley, Utah, on Saturday.
Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal is also at the tycoons’ summit, although it remains unclear if the two men have met.
In a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission announcing Musk was ending his bid for Twitter, Skadden Arps attorney Mike Ringler – acting for Musk – said Twitter were in material breach of multiple provisions of the agreement.
Ringler wrote: ‘Mr Musk is terminating the Merger Agreement because Twitter is in material breach of multiple provisions of that Agreement, appears to have made false and misleading representations upon which Mr. Musk relied when entering into the Merger Agreement, and is likely to suffer a Company Material Adverse Effect.
‘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’.
Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal is pictured at the Sun Valley billionaires’ summit Friday. His firm has now announced they’ll sue Musk to force him to go through with the $44 billion deal
Twitter’s share price closed at just $36.81 on Friday evening – far below the peak of $50-a-share it hit after Musk announced his desire to buy up the firm
‘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 halt the deal unless the firm showed proof spam and bot accounts were fewer than 5 per cent of users who see advertising on the social media service.
But Twitter immediately threatened to take legal action and said it was confident it would win.
Taylor tweeted: ‘The Twitter Board is committed to closing the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon with Mr Musk and plans to pursue legal action to enforce the merger agreement.
‘We are confident we will prevail in the Delaware Court of Chancery.’ That message was later retweeted by CEO Agrawal.
In an internal memo, Twitter’s general counsel reportedly said: ‘Given this is an ongoing legal matter, you should refrain from Tweeting, Slacking, or sharing any commentary about the Merger Agreement.’
Speaking to NBC News about the collapsed deal, an anonymous Twitter employee said that Musk had ‘f**king destroyed the company.’
The employee said: ‘I guess it feels like we won. But it feels like the end of the movie, where the characters are bloodied and bedraggled with a Michael Bay explosion behind them. We could see this was coming, but in the meantime he’s f**king destroyed the company.’
Twitter is famed for a woke workforce who’ve previously been blasted for censorious behavior in the interest of blocking speech they deem ‘harmful.’
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.
Musk’s decision is likely to result in a protracted legal tussle between the billionaire and the 16-year-old San Francisco-based company.
Disputed mergers and acquisitions that land in Delaware courts more often than not end up with the companies re-negotiating deals or the acquirer paying the target a settlement to walk away, rather than a judge ordering that a transaction be completed.
That is because target companies are often keen to resolve the uncertainty around their future and move on.
Twitter, however, is hoping that court proceedings will start in a few weeks and be resolved in a few months, according to a person familiar with the matter.
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.
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