The Washington Post writes that his acquisition deal is ‘in peril’
The Washington Post reports that Elon Musk’s $44 billion deal to buy Twitter is “in peril,” based on three anonymous sources who told the paper that the billionaire’s camp has “stopped engaging in certain discussions around funding” for the agreement. Musk isn’t going it alone in his attempt to buy Twitter, with others like Larry Ellison, the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, Fidelity, the crypto exchange Binance, and the state investment firm of Qatar among those pitching in a few billion as a part of the effort.
The idea that a “drastic” change of direction on the deal is close to happening is supposedly due to concerns that Twitter’s data regarding spam and bots on the platform is not verifiable. The report comes just hours after Twitter had a conference call with media outlets to explain that its spam account data and technology for blocking bots are just fine, setting up a showdown between the company and its would-be new owner.
It has been just about a month since Twitter gave Musk’s team access to a “firehose” of data to back up its claims that bots represent less than 5 percent of its daily active user count. That access only opened up after a tweet from Elon saying the deal was “on hold,” and Musk’s lawyers sent a letter claiming the company was in “clear material breach” of the acquisition deal by refusing to give him access to the data.
From Twitter’s side, as described over the past few months and again today to reporters, they claim that it may not be possible for external sources to verify their count, as it requires access to information — including account data — that can’t be shared safely.
Breaking the agreement for Musk to purchase Twitter would mean someone owes someone else $1 billion, as laid out in their original agreement. Legal wrangling over who is at fault and whether or not Musk will be allowed to back out could take a long time to be resolved.
