There is a lot more at stake for Elon Musk (and the companies he controls) in the unfolding Twitter drama than losing a Delaware Court of Chancery case and being legally compelled to pay billions of dollars over market price to buy Twitter. The bigger issue is Musk’s reputation as a reliable business counterpart.
I have been involved in tech M&A in Silicon Valley for over 20 years and consider myself a fan of Elon Musk as an entrepreneur. I always root for Tesla
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SpaceX, Hyperloop, and all his other innovative endeavors to thrive and help build a better future for us all. That is why I am deeply troubled by the cavalier way Musk has called off the Twitter acquisition and his legal team’s posturing since. On July 8, Musk notified Twitter that he is calling off the acquisition. He blamed Twitter’s failure to produce sufficient information regarding spam accounts (or spam bots) on the platform, which he considers to be a breach of the merger agreement. Four days later, Twitter sued Musk to force the billionaire to consummate the transaction. Whether Twitter was obligated to provide the information Musk requested and if so, did it fail to provide such information will be the focus of the trial in October. There are two main theories as to why Musk wants out of the deal: (a) buyer’s remorse, or (b) genuine breach of contract by Twitter. If Musk’s actions are truly due to buyer’s remorse and a desire to get out of what he may consider to be a bad financial d …