He spoke on stage, essentially off the record, but a source in the room told CNN Chief Media Correspondent Brian Stelter that Musk tripled down on his decision to try to walk away from the deal and claimed it was all because of the bots.
“Originally, Musk said he was going to fix the bot issue,” Stelter told reliable sources on Sunday. “The same problem he now says is stopping him from closing the deal.”
New York Times reporter Lauren Hirsch said there has been an interesting turn of events since news of Musk’s proposal first broke. The stock market “virtually fell off a cliff,” including shares of Tesla (TSLA), which Musk was likely counting on to finance much of the deal.
That may be part of the reason Musk seemed to doubt his purchase offer would go through — almost from the moment he made it. “He would kind of throw daggers and then walk away, and we never knew what his intent was,” Hirsch said.
At least until Friday, when Musk’s lawyer sent Twitter ( TWTR ) a letter saying it was pulling out of the deal because the social media platform was “in material breach of multiple provisions” of the original agreement.
Twitter hits back, vowing to take Musk to court.
And some question whether Musk’s concerns about bots are just an excuse to get out of the deal.
Washington Post national correspondent Philip Bump said it was hard to say what his true motives were, but acknowledged that Musk is an “eccentric character.”
“I’m kind of fascinated by the resonance of his statement that it very quickly intervened in American politics,” Bump said.
Twitter was seen by some as a “left-wing elitist organization” that would now be taken over and reshaped by a libertarian conservative.
One potential beneficiary of Musk’s takeover of Twitter is former President Donald Trump, who was famously banned from the platform after the Jan. 6 violence at the Capitol. He recently took the stage at a political rally in Alaska and called Musk a “bull artist,” calling his decision to back out of the Twitter deal “rotten.”
One of the big questions now is what will happen to Twitter, from its employees to its ad revenue to its stock price. Shares fell another 5% in premarket Monday.
The saga has been ongoing since April, and employees still don’t know who their boss will be, Insider chief media correspondent Claire Atkinson said.
“If you’re considering advertising on the platform, you want to know, ‘Is this product a good fit?'” Atkinson said. “And what are their rules?”
Stelter said bots are undoubtedly a problem for Twitter, although it’s not yet clear how widespread they are. But Musk may be more affected by them than the average consumer.
“I suspect what’s going on here is that Musk has a very different experience on Twitter than the average user,” Stelter said. “It’s inundated with BS replies and spam.”
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