Elon Musk spent the weekend in Idaho attending the Sun Valley Conference after declaring his intention to withdraw from the agreement to purchase Twitter.
A source in the room told CNN’s chief media correspondent Brian Stelter that Musk quadrupled down on his decision to try to back out of the deal and claimed it’s all about the bots while speaking on stage, virtually off the record.
In an earlier statement, Musk promised to address the bot issue, according to Stelter on Reliable Sources on Sunday. “The identical issue that he claims to be preventing him from closing the sale”
According to Lauren Hirsch of the New York Times, an interesting series of circumstances have arisen since the initial story of Musk’s offer. Shares of Tesla, which Musk likely relied on to finance a large portion of the acquisition, and other stocks “essentially went off the cliff” with the stock market.
That might be one of the reasons why Musk has acted as though his purchase offer will never materialize, seemingly from the minute he announced it. We were never entirely sure of his intentions as “he would kind of put daggers out there and then walk away,” Hirsch recalled.
At least until Friday, when Musk’s lawyer sent Twitter a letter saying he is pulling out of the deal because the social media platform is “in material breach of multiple provisions” of the original agreement.
Twitter is fighting back, pledging to take Musk to court.
And some have questioned if Musk’s concerns about the bots are just an excuse to exit the deal.
Washington Post national correspondent Philip Bump said it’s hard to say what his true motives are but did concede that Musk is an “eccentric character.”
“I’m sort of fascinated by the repercussions of his announcement that it very quickly became entangled in American politics,” Bump said.
Twitter was perceived by some as a “leftist elitist organization” that was now going to be taken over and reshaped by a libertarian conservative.
Former President Donald Trump, who was infamously barred from Twitter after the violence on January 6 at the Capitol, is one potential supporter of a Musk takeover of the service.
Trump recently appeared on stage at an Alaska political rally and referred to Musk as a “bulls—t artist” and called his decision to back out of the Twitter deal “rotten.”
What will happen to Twitter, including what will happen to its staff, advertising revenue, and share price, is one of the major uncertainties at the moment.
The saga has been going on since April, and employees still don’t know who their boss is going to be, Insider’s chief media correspondent Claire Atkinson said.
“If you’re considering advertising on the platform, you want to know ‘Is this product suitable?'” Atkinson said. “And what are their rules?”
Stelter said that bots are no doubt a problem for Twitter, though it’s still unclear just how prevalent they are. But Musk may be more affected by them than the average user.
“I suspect what’s going on here is, Musk has a very different experience on Twitter than the average user,” Stelter said. “He is overwhelmed by BS replies and spam.”
After announcing he wants out of his deal to buy Twitter, Elon Musk spent the weekend in Idaho at the Sun Valley Conference.
He spoke on stage, essentially off the record, but a source in the room told CNN’s chief media correspondent Brian Stelter that Musk tripled down on his decision to try to back out of the deal and claiming it’s all about the bots.
