Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and billionaire, in an unexpected U-turn, looks set to complete his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter — alleged spam bots, fake accounts, and all.
It has been according to the notice filed by Musk’s lawyers on October 3 with the Delaware Chancery Court, which was overseeing the trial, Musk is ready to “proceed to close of the transaction contemplated by the April 25, 2022 Merger Agreement.”
However, it follows several months of legal drama with the social media platform wherein Musk tried to back out of the deal, citing Twitter’s lack of transparency around spam bots, fake accounts, and the financial health of the business, and comes just days before a rapidly approaching court date to settle the matter on October 17.
The report said that Musk’s proposed deal comes on the condition that there is “an immediate stay of the action” an adjournment of the trial and a pending receipt of financing. Twitter appears ready to accept the terms of the deal, announcing in an October 4 Twitter post they intend to close the transaction at $54.20 per share.
Likewise, whether the looming court date prompted Musk’s change of heart is uncertain. The Telsa and SpaceX founder has already teased plans for the platform after he takes ownership.
Other than the cryptic tweet, Musk has not yet unveiled what the proposed multipurpose X app is; but in a follow-up tweet on October 4, he mentioned, “Twitter probably accelerates X by 3 to 5 years, but I could be wrong.” Musk previously mulled turning to blockchain technology to combat spam bots by making Twitter users pay 0.1 Dogecoin (DOGE) to tweet or retweet, according to a transcript of phone recordings.
Musk said on page 98 of the transcript:
“You have to pay a tiny amount to register your message on the chain, which will cut out the vast majority of spam and bots. There is no throat to choke, so free speech is guaranteed.”
Thus, he later concluded that blockchain-based Twitter might not be feasible at the moment.
Source: Cointelegraph