Trump celebrates Elon Musk’s exit from a deal to buy Twitter for $44 billion

Donald Trump glorified Elon Musk stopping his efforts to buy Twitterwriting: “The Twitter deal is DEAD, LONG LIVE THE TRUTH.’

The former president shared his thoughts on his rival social network Truth Social on Friday night, shortly after it emerged that Musk, 51, had withdrawn his $44 billion bid.

Trump’s post has been liked about 37,000 times and shared more than 9,000 times on Truth, where Trump has 3.5 million followers.

He created a Twitter look-a-like after being banned by Twitter’s former CEO Jack Dorsey in January 2020, days after the Capitol riots.

Truth Social boasts two million active users compared to Twitter’s 300 million followers.

On Friday, Musk, who is the world’s richest man, announced he was ending his bid to buy Twitter at $54.20 a share, sparking a backlash from the firm’s bosses, who said they would sue to force transactions.

Musk accused Twitter bosses of refusing to share details about the number of fake users on his site in a letter announcing he was pulling out of the deal.

The billionaire slammed the social media giant for refusing to “fulfill its contractual obligations” throughout the acquisition process.

Musk, pictured at the Met Gala in May, announced he was ending his bid to buy Twitter on Friday after saying Twitter was in breach of an agreement they reached

He also claimed that the company has not been operating normally for the past two months as it has frozen the hiring process and laid off senior staff.

Twitter shares closed at $36.81 on Friday after Musk backed out of the deal, sparking speculation that the Tesla owner is still trying to buy the firm — but at a much lower price than he previously offered.

On Saturday, Musk is expected to speak at the so-called Billionaire Summer Camp in Sun Valley, Utah.

Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal is also in attendance at the tycoon summit, though it remains unclear if the two men have met.

In a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission announcing that Musk was ending its bid for Twitter, Skadden Arps attorney Mike Ringler, who is acting for Musk, said Twitter had materially violated several provisions of the agreement.

Ringler wrote: “Mr. Musk is terminating the Merger Agreement because Twitter is in material breach of several provisions of the Agreement, appears to have made false and misleading statements on which Mr. Musk relied in entering into the Merger Agreement, and is likely to suffer material negative impact of the company.

“While Section 6.4 of the Merger Agreement requires Twitter to provide Mr. Musk and his advisors with all data and information that Mr. Musk requests “for any reasonable business purpose related to the consummation of the transaction,” Twitter is failing to comply with its contractual obligations. .

“For nearly two months, Mr. Musk sought the data and information needed to ‘make an independent assessment of the prevalence of fake or spam accounts on the Twitter platform.’

Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal is pictured at the Sun Valley Billionaires Summit on Friday. Now his firm has announced it will sue Musk to force him to honor the $44 billion deal

Twitter’s stock price closed Friday night at just $36.81, well below the peak of $50 a share it hit after Musk announced he wanted to buy the firm.

“This information is fundamental to Twitter’s business and financial operations and is necessary to carry out the transactions contemplated by the Merger Agreement because it is necessary to ensure Twitter’s satisfaction of the closing conditions, to facilitate the financing and financial planning of the transaction by Mr. Musk, and to participate in the planning transition for business.

“Twitter failed or refused to provide this information. At times, Twitter has ignored Mr. Musk’s requests, at times it has denied them for what appeared to be unjustified reasons, and at other times it has claimed to be in compliance by providing Mr. Musk with incomplete or inappropriate information.”

Musk had previously threatened to end the deal unless the firm showed proof of spam and bot accounts accounted for less than 5 percent of users seeing ads on social media.

But Twitter immediately threatened to sue and said it was confident it would win.

Taylor tweeted: “Twitter’s board is committed to closing the transaction at the price and terms agreed upon with Mr. Musk and plans to sue to enforce the merger agreement.

“We are confident that we will prevail in the Delaware Court of Chancery.” The message was later retweeted by CEO Agrawal.

In an internal memo, Twitter’s general counsel reportedly said, “Given that this is an ongoing legal matter, you should refrain from tweeting, tweeting, or sharing any comments about the Merger Agreement.”

Talking to NBC News of the failed deal, an anonymous Twitter employee said that Musk “fucked up the company.”

The employee said: “I think we won. But it feels like the end of a movie, with the characters bloodied and bruised and Michael Bay blasting behind them. We saw that coming, but in the meantime, he’s fucking wrecked the company.”

Twitter is famous for its woke work, which has previously been accused of censoring to block speech it deems “harmful”.

Musk said he plans to take a much more relaxed approach to moderation.

He wanted to impose temporary suspensions on users, rather than outright, lifetime bans for bad behavior — such as those imposed on Donald Trump for allegedly inciting riots on January 6.

Musk is an avid user of the site and says he wanted to buy it to turn it into a free speech powerhouse.

At a mass meeting with employees in April, Agrawal tried to calm employee anger after workers demanded answers about how managers planned to handle the expected mass departure triggered by Musk.

If the deal with Musk goes through, Agrawal could earn $42 million.

Musk’s decision is likely to lead to a lengthy legal battle between the billionaire and the 16-year-old San Francisco-based company.

Contentious mergers and acquisitions that end up in Delaware courts more often end up with the companies renegotiating the deals or the buyer paying the entities an exit agreement, rather than a judge ordering the deal to be completed.

That’s because target companies are often looking to resolve the uncertainty surrounding their future and move on.

Twitter, however, hopes the lawsuit will begin in a few weeks and be resolved in a few months, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The drama could be resolved if Twitter agreed to sell itself to Musk for less, or if Musk agreed to pay the firm to back out of the deal.