The difference between now and last spring, of course, is that in the interim Musk tried to walk away from his signed contract to buy Twitter. And that Twitter sued him to try to enforce that deal, and that the two sides are currently in court preparing for a trial that is scheduled to start October 17 — less than two weeks from now.
What changed? We don’t know yet. We do know that Musk is at best unpredictable and that we shouldn’t take anything he says or does at face value. Even if the two sides met in Delaware court on Tuesday to discuss the proposal, as the New York Times has reported, it doesn’t mean it will go through or that he won’t have another reversal at some point.
Here, for the record, is Musk’s letter to Twitter, pledging to agree to the deal he was previously trying get out of, as long as the planned trial comes to a halt.
"Gentlemen?"
— The Chancery Daily (@chancery_daily) October 4, 2022
Did we revert a century or what lol smh
We got the letter from Musk to Twitter via SEC. 🙏
In short: "let's call the whole thing off" pic.twitter.com/HRkLEZsqU1
In the meantime, let’s briefly recap how we got here, and discuss the challenges Musk will face if he actually does end up owning Twitter.
The tl;dr backstory: Last spring, Musk, one of Twitter’s most prolific users, accumulated a 9 percent stake in Twitter but said he wasn’t planning on acquiring the service. Then he agreed to join the company’s board, then decided he didn’t want to do that, and then announced that he wanted to buy Twitter. The company first rejected his offer and then, after looking around for a better alternative, agreed to his terms.