Twitter's Turn

With a lawsuit looming, Elon Musk decides to go through with his Twitter purchase—for now at least

- Sarah Frier

Months of legal barbs exchanged between Twitter Inc. and Elon Musk—who urgently wanted to own the company and then changed his mind—came to a head on Monday, Oct. 3, with an apparent peace offering. The world’s richest man said in a letter to Twitter’s board that he would buy the social network after all. He plans to honor the original $44 billion price tag he agreed to in April, plus everything else in that contract.

Twitter shares jumped more than 20% the next day, indicating investors expect a done deal. But Twitter stopped short of declaring victory or dropping the suit it filed to force Musk to complete the transaction, which is set to go to trial on Oct. 17.

Twitter has good reason to be cautious. While Musk has secured the financing for the deal—from banks that may be regretting the commitments they made during better economic times—he hasn’t earned any trust with Twitter. The company would be wise to get the money before closing its legal shop. Back in April, Musk was on friendly terms with Twitter and ready to join its board. The company had prematurely put his face on its investor relations page and invited him to do a question-and-answer session with employees. But he reneged the same week, apparently frustrated after Chief Executive Officer Parag Agrawal told Musk that his negative public commentary was making it hard for employees to focus, according to text messages released by the court. “What did you get done this week?” Musk replied to Agrawal. “I’m not joining the board. This is a waste of time. Will make an offer to take Twitter private.”