“Mr. Musk, Tesla’s chief executive and largest shareholder, sold around 7.9 million shares between Friday and Tuesday, the disclosures show, leaving him with a 15% stake in the company. The Tesla boss has been on a selling spree over the past year, during which he has cashed out roughly $32 billion worth of shares in the electric-vehicle maker.”
Cars for Tweets?
Musk has since confirmed the sell-off, explaining it in a Tweet. The Musk-Twitter takeover is scheduled to be heard in the Delaware Court of Chancery in October after Musk and Co. sought to exit the deal based on Twitter’s inability to convince them that only 5% of its active users are either bots or fake accounts.
In response, Twitter outlined its ‘airtight’ case against Musk’s previous claims, with the court scheduling an expedited trial based on Twitter’s counter-evidence. Twitter’s counter filing also suggests that this element is not a legal impediment to inducing closure of the deal, under its original terms. That means that Musk’s takeover comes down to his team’s ability to convince the court that Twitter’s process of counting bots and fake accounts constitutes a material altering of the original terms, which looks like a difficult path to take.
This is the same reason why Musk is now taking measures to prepare for a likely loss, which will probably still see Musk become the new Tweeter in Chief, whether or not he wants to. Of course, one could also argue that this is just due diligence and that Musk is doing what he can to ensure he’s covered in the face of a loss. Others have also suggested that this entire thing had been an elaborate setup just so Musk could sell off Tesla stocks that were set to soon expire.
A lot of super-rich person math is involved here, so we won’t touch too much on the subject. Either way, it does look like Musk, at the very least, is concerned that he’ll lose the upcoming trial and that he will be forced to buy Twitter at his original agreed price. However, Musk has noted that he has a backup plan in case his Twitter deal falls through.
The Wrap
So, it would seem that even if Musk loses his upcoming court case, he stands to still make big waves on Social Media, while it may also suggest that Twitter could become ‘X’ or something close to it. One way or another, we’re getting closer to a resolution.
What’s really puzzling here is why Musk would choose a very shady and inappropriate-sounding name – I mean, what sort of stuff would you expect to find on a site named X.com, right?
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