"...asked the judge to delay the trial while he figured out financing"

Proof enough that this was never more than to stir the pot and market himself. This is not a serious person.

You want to take a company private at 40+(?) billion, you dick around for months and not the get the financing started until your threatened by the seller in court (probably to avoid discovery)? My understanding, despite being so rich, he is going to have to do a lot of collateral and borrowing to get this done.

Then go public and trash talk the stock you want to buy? I have a feeling the SEC will come knocking again. God, this man is insufferable.

The delay was not to figure out the financing. He had that ready to go. He was hoping that delay would cause the financing to pass its sell by date. Somehow his lawyers have explained to him that that does not matter: the court would appoint a special master with the authority so sell anything Musk has to complete the purchase. On top of that, Musk would have to go through deposition and his inability to keep his mouth shut would have dropped him in even deeper trouble.

I really want to see this discovery he's so afraid of made public!

His wealth is pretty much entirely in Tesla shares, and offloading about 6% of the company on the market isn't necessarily that easy. Shares have roughly halved in value over the past year.

Maybe not for Musk, but someone working with the authority of the State could do it no problem. And it would be more than 6% of the company because as soon as the shares started hitting the market the price would start going down and more would need to be sold to make up the full purchase price. Which are all things Musk should have thought about before agreeing to the deal.

What I mean is you need to find people who are willing to buy it, over and above the normal trading volume which is about $75m per day. Doesn't matter if you are Musk or the government, except that Musk would probably get a slightly better price for it.

And yes, I absolutely agree, the price will go down when shares are dumped on the market.

He makes an offer so large that the Twitter board literally cannot refuse then says he is obviously over paying - well derr that was why the Twitter board put the sale up to for a vote and why the share holders voted to sell.

Now he says "the long-term potential for Twitter, in my view, is an order of magnitude greater than its current value". If that were true he would not be over paying.

Perhaps he is right because there is an obvious synergy with Tesla. Soon I will be able to buy a Tesla bot that can write Tweets for me, follow the trend setters for me, click on the adverts for me and buy the things [1]he says I should want .

[1] https://mashable.com/article/elon-musk-burnt-hair

And he did rush into the deal.

I expect based on the recent revelations that Twitter is internally in pretty bad shape. He agreed to waive full due diligence.

He set the price of the offer based on what he could pay, not on what he could get it for.

When the market turned a corner the valuation tanked.

When Twitters internal problems came to light it tanked more.

When he tried to back out the deal it tanked more.

Musk timed the market perfectly to buy near the top, and personally helped turn his acquisition into a wounded animal.

Because of the attempt to back out and the court fight, he is now hated by employees of the company he soon will own. He has made personal beefs with senior management, and the company has it's own culture which is antithetical to how he runs the rest of his empire.

Those he didn't already order fired are deciding to flee in droves, and silicon valleys finest headhunters taste blood in the water. And all of the old timers probably won't even need to work again after the buyout.

He thinks of himself as a visionary, but the rest of Twitter's users is what makes the platform, and how many share his vision?

The web is littered with the bones of the last dozen platforms that filled the role Twitter did. Twitter isn't clever, it doesn't do that much, it was in the right place at the right moment, and was the lucky lottery winner. It survived because it stayed simple, and avoided screwing up it's success by not messing with it's user bases, but it has been running on VC money and IPO practically the whole time. The gamblers got lucky, the found a sucker with a big wallet. That was the business plan.

As for what comes next? Odds are between his tantrums and probably re-platforming the people the company justifiably removed, Musk will turn Twitter into a toxic waste pit. He will jack around with the app to suit his personal whims, and he has to monetize the hell out of and already marginally profitable venture. The people that built the companies core infrastructure are in play and may leave for all of the reasons above.

I can't wait to see what Ted Dziuba has to say about this one. I feel like he should take the old brown bess off the mantle and come out of retirement for one more post to put a capstone on the grave of one the ages unicorns.

It was YOUR offer, Elon. If you think it's overpriced, that's on you.

Dude, I swear I didn't know we were serious, anyway, what were we talking about again....

*Makes you wish you had only buyers remorse, at least you were sober when binge buying?

Part of me says "Good for you, fuck up again!"

sfcs...

First up, the "break up fee" was never on the table. It required very specific conditions to be met, it wasn't just a "get out of deal for $1bn" monopoly card. Regulators had to nix the idea or Musk wouldn't be able to secure financing, something on that order. Usually one of the things I like about El Reg is that you read all the boring crap like legal documents and then summarize it for everyone with a healthy dose of snark. This seems to be a case of someone getting lazy.

Second, it seems more than a little curious that the same day the judge in the case orders Musk to hand over documents related to how he's under federal investigation from TWO different US agencies, is the same day he suddenly decides he'll buy Twitter after all, but ONLY if they agree to drop the lawsuit. Just my personal bit of speculation, but that sounds like the actions of someone who knows he's in some deep shit, which will probably tank the Tesla stock, which is where most of his net worth exists. You can get away with a lot if you're a rich white male in the US, but when you tell a regulatory agency to suck your cock... the gloves come off.

I hope, though realize it's probably in vain, that other top executives are paying attention to this lesson in why you don't negotiate deals A) while on some kind of mind altering substance, and B) without your lawyers being involved at every step.

That you, Elon?

Not got better things to do?

I will never understand it myself, but there are some people out there for whom Musk can do no wrong. He could break into their house, trash the place, leave a steaming pile of poo in the middle of the bed, and then send them a bill for the Uber he took there and back and they'd still worship the ground he walked on.

We also know a good number of Elon's Twitter followers are bots and he's not above hiring astroturfers, so... it's not out of the question that someone was paid to go around to places like El Reg and downvote everything. Sort of the lazy troll who can't even come up with a response to any of the comments so far.