ETtech looks back at how the saga unfolded.
The beginning: On April 5, Musk revealed he had become the largest single shareholder in Twitter – a move he started putting into effect three months ago in January – with a 9.2% shareholding (valued at nearly $3 billion at the time).
The next day, Twitter shareholders asked him to join the board. Musk agreed but later declined, marking the start of an unrestrained corporate slugfest including lawsuits and countersuits, and allegations of breach of corporate trust.
Musk then
announced he would buy Twitter at $54.2 a share. Seeing this as a hostile takeover attempt,
Twitter adopted a “poison pill” to thwart Musk’s efforts. Following days of corporate negotiations, Musk agreed to proceed with the deal, terming Twitter the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated.
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The breakup: Despite raising about $7 billion from external investors for the deal, Musk seemed to develop cold feet, citing the platform’s spam and bot problem.
When then-CEO Parag Agrawal tried to explain the problem in a Twitter thread, Musk replied with a “poo” emoji.
It soon became clear that he was unwilling to go through with the deal. At this point, Musk’s lawyers entered the accused Twitter of a “material breach” of the contract, claiming the company did not provide them with the vital information.
On July 8,
Musk called off the deal.
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The patch-up:
Twitter sued Musk in a Delaware court for backing out of the deal. Expectedly, Musk countersued Twitter.
July and August saw plenty of allegations, counter-allegations, and a social media slugfest between the two warring parties.
Musk also cited the claims of Peiter “Mudge” Zatko — a former head of security at Twitter who claimed the platform’s security was riddled with issues — as a reason to back out of the deal.
The judge gave both parties until the evening of October 28 to close the deal but
Musk gave in and bought Twitterthe day before the scheduled trial.
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Elon Musk fires Twitter CEO to ‘free the bird’
Musk “frees the bird”: Those who thought the drama would end when Musk bought Twitter were quickly proven wrong. Within hours,
Musk fired the top brass at Twitter, including Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, head of legal policy, trust and safety Vijaya Gadde, and Twitter’s legal counsel Sean Edgett.
In the next few days
he fired over 50% of Twitter’s staff across the globe, including many in India.
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He also scrapped the old system of handing out blue ticks and made the once-coveted badge a part of the platform’s premium offering Twitter Blue,
which he priced at $8 a month.
He also
reinstated Donald Trump’s account.
In December he asked in a Twitter poll if he should step down as CEO of the company, saying he would abide by the results.
Twitter users
voted for him to step down and Musk is now hunting for his successor.
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Elon Musk freed the bird, but who’ll free him?
(Graphics and illustrations by Rahul Awasthi)
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