Like most of its common customers, Elon Musk likes to hate on Twitter, often through the medium of Twitter.
Early on the morning of 9 April 2022, he despatched a tweet observing that some well-known folks do not submit fairly often, asking: “Is Twitter dying?”
It was a sound, if overblown, query, however at that time, Musk was in talks to affix the social community’s board of administrators, which made it an odd opinion to fireplace off in public.
So, later that day, Twitter’s new chief government, Parag Agrawal, politely requested Musk to cease.
“You are free to tweet ‘is twitter dying?’ or anything else about Twitter,” he texted, “but it’s my responsibility to tell you that it’s not helping me make twitter better in the current context”.
To an out of doors observer wanting again, this appeared like a relaxed, grownup response to making an attempt circumstances. At the time, Musk did not suppose so.
He threw what can solely be described as a tantrum, texting Agrawal, “What did you get done this week?” and writing “I’m not joining the board. This is a waste of time,” earlier than vowing to purchase the corporate as a substitute.
These textual content messages have been launched as a part of the court docket case between Musk and Twitter, which was launched when – spoiler alert – Musk’s eventual buy didn’t undergo.
After initially committing to purchase Twitter for $44bn (£38.4bn), he rapidly backed out, citing considerations concerning the variety of spam bots on the platform.
You may say – nicely, that is what occurs once you signal a contract with out doing any due diligence.
Or you may say – when you’re apprehensive about spam bots, show that they are having a “material adverse effect” on the enterprise, the excessive bar it is advisable to show to wriggle out of the deal.
And certainly, that is what Twitter did say, suing Musk to implement the contract.
The court docket case wasn’t going particularly nicely for Musk, not least as a result of it was resulting in embarrassing disclosures about his private contacts.
Now he is had yet one more change of coronary heart, saying he’ll honour his contract and purchase Twitter, and throwing off a tweet to his 107 million followers about his plans to show it into “X, the everything app”.
No doubt this gnomic assertion will encourage many hundreds of phrases of earnest evaluation, however given current historical past, why ought to we take it critically?
If he was actually going to undergo with the deal, would not Musk have put out a joint assertion with Twitter? If he was critical about his plans, would not he have developed them, no less than to the purpose of arising with, nicely, a plan?
Reading Musk’s public statements and personal texts, it is onerous to keep away from the impression of a person who made an costly buy in a match of pique, earlier than having second ideas when he realised what he’d bought himself into.
The context right here is that the current downturn within the markets means Musk has not solely misplaced a considerable portion of his private wealth, but in addition made the worth he paid for Twitter in April appear embarrassingly excessive.
Yes, Musk has agreed to purchase Twitter, however he mentioned that earlier than after which declared the deal he’d signed “on hold”.
Don’t wager on a deal going via simply but.
If you are shaking your head or rolling your eyes at this level, spare a thought for Twitter’s workers, who’ve needed to endure months of uncertainty and barracking from their doable future boss. Imagine how they really feel.
And but, behind the posturing and the tantrums, Musk does sometimes have a degree. Twitter definitely has plenty of issues, not least the truth that it is identified in tech because the place the place nothing ever will get accomplished.
When Musk texted Mr Agrawal, “What did you get done this week?”, he was expressing a broadly held view in Silicon Valley. Twitter must be a titan. Instead, within the phrases of Mark Zuckerberg from over a decade in the past, it is “a clown car that drove to a goldmine and fell in.”
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Musk is a social media troll, an unreliable investor, and an entrepreneur of true genius, who specialises in taking spares and elements and placing them collectively into one thing that basically works.
Buying a $44bn firm in a match of pique after which backing out of it twice could be an extremely Elon Musk transfer.
So would utilizing that very same pique to show it into one thing good.
Source: information.sky.com”