Elon Musk has joked that “owning the libraries” doesn’t come cheap after claiming to put his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter on hold.
“Anyone who thought owning libraries was cheap never tried to acquire a social media company!” Musk tweeted Saturday. He added, “At least that’s what the Lib-Hivemind thinks, haha.”
“Owning libs” is Internet slang used by conservatives to refer to defeating or embarrassing liberals in arguments.
Musk threw his Twitter takeover bid into chaos on Friday morning, tweeting that the deal was “temporarily on hold” while he investigated the proliferation of fake and spam accounts on the social media site.
However, a person familiar with the negotiations told the Washington Post: “We haven’t seen one iota of evidence that the deal is on hold.”
“Things continue today just as they did yesterday,” the person said.
Elon Musk has joked that “owning the libraries” doesn’t come cheap after claiming to put his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter on hold. He is seen above with his mother
Analysts and insiders widely believe that Musk’s tweets on Friday were an attempt to pressure and negotiate a lower price for his acquisition, which has been approved by Twitter’s board of directors but will take several months to complete.
Even Donald Trump, commenting on his Truth Social platform on Friday, hinted that Musk was looking to negotiate a better deal to buy Twitter after agreeing to pay $54.20 per share.
The former US president said the only reason the Tesla CEO hasn’t called the Twitter deal yet is because of the $1 billion breakup fee.
“There’s no way Elon Musk is going to buy Twitter at such a ridiculous price, especially as he realizes it’s a company that’s largely based on BOTS or spam accounts,” Trump wrote when he sold the competing social media company attack.
“Without the ridiculous billion-dollar breakup fee, Elon would have been dead long ago,” he added.
Former President Donald Trump was among many to speculate that Musk put the acquisition on hold in hopes of a better negotiation
Both analysts and insiders widely believe that Musk’s tweets on Friday were an attempt to apply pressure and negotiate a lower price for his acquisition
Musk also sparked heated debate this week after saying he would allow Trump to return to Twitter if he took over the reins, consistent with his earlier statements that he intended to side with free speech rather than on it to set bans and censorship.
Trump has repeatedly stated that he has no plans to return to Twitter after being removed from the platform following the Jan. 6 Capitol riots.
Markets have tumbled since the deal was approved on April 25, making Twitter’s valuation on the terms look increasingly higher compared to similar companies.
Musk’s tweet on Friday claiming the deal was on hold caused Twitter shares to plummet and sent Tesla stock, which he is using as collateral to fund the deal, soaring, sending Musk into a much stronger negotiating position.
The spread between the offer price and the value of Twitter shares had widened over the past few days, implying a less than 50 percent chance of closing as investors speculated that the downturn would prompt Musk to walk away or seek a lower price .
“Twitter deal on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts actually represent less than 5% of users,” Musk told his more than 92 million Twitter followers on Friday morning.
Musk said he was still involved in the $44 billion purchase of the social media company pending an investigation into how many spam accounts are on the site
“To find out, my team will create a random sample of 100 followers of the microblogging site,” Musk tweeted, inviting others to repeat the process and “see what they discover.”
“If we try to figure out the percentage of bots/duplicate users together, we can probably crowdsource a good answer.”
Musk tweeted that he had “relyed on the accuracy of Twitter’s public records” in response to a follower asking why he hadn’t thought of that before offering to buy the company.
Under the terms of Musk’s contract with Twitter, he is entitled to ask the company for information about its operations after the deal is signed.
But this is to help him prepare for his ownership of Twitter, not to do due diligence and resume negotiations.
Twitter does not plan to take any immediate action against Musk as a result of Musk’s comment, people familiar with the matter said.
The company viewed the comment as derogatory and a breach of the terms of its deal contract, but was encouraged by Musk, who subsequently tweeted that he was committed to the acquisition, the sources added.
Musk arrived at Twitter’s office for a meeting on May 6 as part of the transaction planning process, a Twitter spokesman said.
Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal also weighed in, tweeting, “While I expect the deal to close, we need to be prepared for all scenarios.” On Thursday, Agrawal announced leadership changes and a hiring freeze.